Medication Used As Anxiety Medication - 1439 Words

Seizure Medication Used as Anxiety Medication Everyday someone is fighting a battle with an anxiety disorder. Anxiety is considered a mental illness that causes distress, worry, and fear to an individual. Some types of anxiety include the following: panic disorder, social anxiety disorder, specific phobias, and a generalized anxiety disorder with unrealistic worry (WebMD, 2016). The cause for anxiety is currently unknown, but environmental stress and changes in the brain can be linked factors (WebMD, 2016). Anxiety disorders affect 40 million adults who are 18 and older, this is 18% of the population in the United States (ADAA, 2014). General Anxiety Disorder alone affects 3.1% of the United States population and it most often affects†¦show more content†¦My patient is a 35 year old female who takes Clonazepam, also referred to its brand name Klonopin, whenever she feels like she’s going to have an anxiety attack and feels overwhelmed or stressed. She was originally prescribed to take the medication orally once a day with a dosage of 1 mg. Upon physician’s approval the patient now only takes .5 mg of Clonazepam as needed, this should not be a major concern to this patient. The only concern we would need to be worried about is if the patient took Clonazepam more times than needed and then suddenly stopped taking the medication. This would then lead to withdrawal symptoms which may potentially cause the patient to develop a physical dependence (Everyday Health, 2016). Dosing Information for Clonazepam Adult Dose for Seizure Prophylaxis Adult Clonazepam Dose for Panic Disorder Pediatric Clonazepam Dose for Seizure Prophylaxis Should not exceed 1.5 mg/day divided into 3 doses. Maximum dose 20mg. Initial dose is .25 mg bid Maximum is 4 mg/day. Initial dose should be 0.001 and 0.03 mg/kg/day. Not exceeding 0.05 mg/kg/day. Maximum dose 20mg. Clonazepam is considered a Benzodiazepine and is generally used to treat patients who have petit-mal, akinetic, and myoclonic seizures, or those with panic disorder (Wynn, Meiller, Crossley, 2014). Benzodiazepines take action by binding to receptors on gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) and increase membrane permeability to chloride