Adding Lithium or Anticonvulsants to Antipsychotics for the Treatment of Schizophrenia: Useful Strategy or Exercise in Futility?

Clinicians often go to heroic lengths to find effective treatment
strategies for their patients suffering from treatmentresistant
schizophrenia. These approaches include polypharmacy
with other antipsychotics as well as adjunctive medication
strategies with mood stabilizers such as lithium or anticonvulsants.
The hope is for an enhancement of pharmacodynamic
effects so that treatment response is perhaps quicker in onset,
more robust, and enduring.