Prevalence of medicines used by mentally-ill individuals of APAE, in Londrina

Abstract

Mental retardation (MR), after years of mites and beliefs, finally was considered to be a neurological affection that should be treated by a medical intervention. Psychotropic drugs, if correctly prescribed, are able to improve the capacity of MR individuals to productively interact socially and reintegrate themselves to the society. This work has as an objective to quantify, by a descriptive study, the frequency of use of medicines by students of the APAE (Associação de Pais e Amigos dos Excepcionais) from Londrina-PR, characterize those drugs and relate them to mental pathologies of major prevalence in the institution. To accomplish the objectives, a pool was conducted on a population of 147 students registered during the period from January/1989 to May/ 2003. The results shown the following medicines: antiepiletic (52.4%), neuroleptics (3.4%), hematopoietics (2.7%), anticolinergics and pro-kinetics agents (0.7%) each. Fenobarbital was the most evident among the antiepiletic (29.8%). The prevalence of those drugs was higher among individuals with cerebral palsy (62.1%) and lower for the Down syndrome group (17,24%). As a conclusion, we consider necessary to conduct research projects focusing on the dynamic of the personnel affected by MR, as well as to provide social assistance to destitute families.