Citation

Sasayama D, Hori H, Teraishi T, Hattori K, Ota M, Matsuo J, Kinoshita Y, Okazaki M, Arima K, Amano N, Higuchi T, Kunugi H. J. Psychiatr. Res. 2014; 49: 37-42.

Affiliation

Department of Mental Disorder Research, National Institute of Neuroscience, National Center of Neurology and Psychiatry, 4-1-1, Ogawahigashi, Kodaira, Tokyo 187-8502, Japan; Department of Psychiatry, Shinshu University School of Medicine, 3-1-1 Asahi, Matsumoto 390-8621, Japan.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2014, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.jpsychires.2013.10.019

PMID

24262979

Abstract

Impaired dexterity is a major psychomotor deficit reported in patients with schizophrenia. In the present study, the Purdue pegboard test was used to compare the manual dexterity in patients with schizophrenia and healthy controls. We also examined the influence of antipsychotics, benzodiazepines, and benzodiazepine-like drugs on manual dexterity. Subjects were 93 patients with schizophrenia and 93 healthy controls, matched for sex and age distributions. Control subjects scored significantly higher on all scores of Purdue pegboard than patients with schizophrenia. Age, PANSS negative symptom scale, typical antipsychotic dose, and use of benzodiazepines and/or benzodiazepine-like drugs were negatively correlated with the pegboard scores in patients with schizophrenia. The present results indicate that patients with schizophrenia have impaired gross and fine fingertip dexterity compared to healthy controls. The use of typical antipsychotics and benzodiazepines and/or benzodiazepine-like drugs, but not atypical antipsychotics, had significant negative impact on dexterity in patients with schizophrenia. Psychiatrists should be aware that some psychotropic medications may enhance the disability caused by the impairment of dexterity in patients with schizophrenia.

Language: en