AYURVEDIC FORMULATIONS FOR THE MANAGEMENT OF PSYCHOTIC DISORDERS

Psychosis is the group of psychiatric illnesses with serious distortion of thought, behavior, perception and gross impairment in reality testing. Schizophrenia is the most common disorder in psychiatric outpatient departments. Unmada is a similar clinical condition described in almost all Ayurvedic texts. Presently, in modern medicine mainly two types of drugs i.e. typical and atypical antipsychotic are available for the management of these disorders but still a large number of patients are having either poor response, recurrence or not responding to these drugs. Ayurvedic therapeutics has many herbal and herbo-mineral formulations in different dosage forms viz. Churna, Kwatha, Ashava / Arista, Vati / Guggulu preparations, Ghrita preparations, oil preparations, Bhasma/ Rashausadhies etc. along with Panchakarma and Sattvavajaya Chikitsa for the management of Unmada. By using these drugs either alone or as an adjuvant with antipsychotic drugs we can not only treat but also can minimize the adverse effects of the same.