Successful treatment of respiratory dyskinesia with picoTesla range magnetic fields.

Respiratory dyskinesia, a syndrome characterized by an irregular respiratory rate, tachypnea, and grunting, is a serious complication of chronic neuroleptic therapy. It frequently occurs in elderly women and is commonly associated with clinical features of Tardive dyskinesia (TD). Respiratory dyskinesia initially was considered to be a rare complication of chronic neuroleptic treatment, but more recent reports indicate that respiratory abnormalities are common in patients treated with antipsychotic medications. The appropriate management of patients with respiratory dyskinesia has not been determined as the underlying pathophysiology is incompletely understood. We present a schizophrenic patient on long term antipsychotic therapy who presented with respiratory dyskinesia associated with symptoms of TD and tardive Tourette's syndrome which emerged coincident with an abrupt withdrawal of neuroleptic therapy. In this patient, external application of picoTesla range magnetic fields (MF) produced rapid attenuation in the severity of respiratory and motor dyskinesias. As the pineal gland is considered a magnetosensor and since exposure of experimental animals and humans to external MF alters melatonin secretion, we then propose that the beneficial effects of MF involve the mediation of the pineal gland which has been implicated previously in the pathophysiology of drug-induced movement disorders including TD.