Open AccessBenzodiazepine withdrawal catatonia: Two cases from a tertiary care center in Eastern India
Author(s) -
Uttam Majumder,
Avik Kumar Layek
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
industrial psychiatry journal/industrial psychiatry journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 0976-2795
pISSN - 0972-6748
DOI - 10.4103/ipj.ipj_265_21
Subject(s) - catatonia , benzodiazepine , social withdrawal , medicine , psychiatry , tertiary care , anesthesia , pediatrics , schizophrenia (object oriented programming) , receptor
Catatonia is a diagnostic entity of a neuropsychiatric cluster of symptoms that can occur in a number of different psychiatric, neurologic, and metabolic disorders. Benzodiazepines remain the mainstay of the treatment of catatonia through their possible effect on the gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) receptor modulation in the central nervous system (CNS). Rarely, patients have been seen to manifest catatonic symptoms when they face sudden withdrawal from long-term benzodiazepine treatment. Here, we have presented two such cases of different clinical profiles where following benzodiazepine withdrawal, sudden catatonic symptoms emerged that responded quickly on re-administration of benzodiazepines.