Catatonic Syndrome : Treatment Response to Lorazepam

Sir, We read with interest the study by Payee et al. (1999). Authors remark that no study on the treatment of catatonia with lorazepam has been carried out in India. In this context, we would like to mention that a similar but more exhaustive study has been conducted by us on a larger patient population at Central Institute of Psychiatry, Ranchi. We share a few findings from our study, which is currently in the process of publication. Our study had 60 patients who were divided into four treatment groupslow dose (4 mg/day) and high dose (8 mg/day) oral lorazepam and low dose (4 mg/day) and high dose (8 mg/day) intravenous lorazepam. Besides using the BushFrancis Catatonia Screening Instrument and the Bush-Francis Catatonia Rating Scale (BFCRS), Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS) was also used to assess the psychopathology. Some of our findings concurred with the findings of the aforementioned study. For instance, we found more patients with schizophrenia as well as acute and transient psychotic disorders than affective disorders presenting with catatonic syndrome. Moreover, severity and duration of catatonia did not predict the response to treatment with lorazepam. However, there were other results, which were at variance with the authors' study. We observed that treatment response after 72 hours of treatment with lorazepam was the best predictor of the final treatment outcome. THE EDITOR