Pharmacotherapy

Patient safety

In many cases, the psychiatric treatment requires the use of several drugs, for example, not only because of depression, but also an internal medical disease such as high blood pressure must be treated.

In order to better assess potential health risks that may arise from drug-drug interactions, we use information from a medical database when planning the drug treatment. This approach creates more patient safety in medical treatment decisions.

Other medical measures to detect possible adverse drug reactions and interactions in good time include regular ECG (Electrocardiogram), various blood and metabolic parameters, and drug monitoring (TDM).

Therapeutic drug monitoring

The safety of psychopharmacotherapy is essentially ensured by a regular plasma level monitoring in our own laboratory. The metabolism of drugs is subject to large interindividual fluctuations, which can be partly genetic, but can also be influenced by physical illnesses (eg reduced liver and kidney function) and additional consumption of nicotine or caffeine.

The TDM (Therapeutic Drug Monitoring) with monitoring of the plasma levels allows to avoid individual overdoses (and thus side effects) as well as underdoses (and thus often lack of efficacy of the drugs). All services under the TDM are subject to a strict quality assurance procedure.