CFFT could be useful as a screening instrument for early AD when combined with other measures and could facilitate the decision to commence antidementia treatment at an early stage. Further longitudinal work is needed to establish this.

Psychotropic drugs were commonly used by older people in contact with mental health services. The doses of antipsychotics used in dementia and affective disorders were significantly lower than in schizophrenia. Risperidone was the most commonly used drug in all diagnostic groups including dementia. Despite a relatively large numbers of patients receiving risperidone in this naturalistic study, no serious side-effects were reported or identified. In this paper we focus our findings on antipsychotics in the light of recent advice from the Committee on Safety of Medicines (UK).

levelstend to increasein the premenstrualperiod in normal women (Rapkin eta!, 1987). Increased5-HT levelsin the premenstrual period may therefore con tribute to the relapsing of the psychosis,especially the negativesymptoms. There is also evidence for the serotoninergic modulation of blinking in animal experiments (Dursun & Handley, l99l)The 5-HT2/5-HT1@ recep tor antagonist ritanserin abolishedblinking induced by intracerebroventricular injection of thryotropin releasing hormone, whereas haloperidol did not (Dursun & Handley, 1991). This experimental data also supports Dr Lovestone's observation about the inactivity of adequate dosage of dopamine antagoniststo antagoniseblinking.

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