VIDEO: Tardive dyskinesia management has ‘changed a lot’ in recent years

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I think in the last 10 years, I'd say it's changed a lot. Two drugs have been approved I think in 2016 or 2017 to treat tardive dyskinesia. That's valbenzene, which is brand name ingrezza, and then deutetrabenazine or brand name austedo. They're both oral medications that have the same mechanism of action actually: VMAT2 inhibitors. So they block dopamine from getting into the neuron to get released into the synaptic cleft. So when neurons talk to each other, there's less dopamine involved in that communication, which helps calm down the excessive movements. So both those medicines are new in recent years, and they're both quite effective inlessening the movements. They don't make them go away completely, but they give you a significant benefit that can help out in terms of quality of life and other things.