antipsychotic agent
- noun
- /ˌæntiˈsaɪkɒtɪk ˈeɪdʒənt/
- Specialized
- Doctors often prescribe antipsychotic agents to help manage symptoms of schizophrenia.
Examples
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The patient experienced a significant reduction in hallucinations after starting the antipsychotic agent therapy.
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No comparable studies exist for psychiatric care, but there are some reports of the use of antipsychotic agents, which find rates of off-label prescribing between fifteen and sixty-six percent.
Academic text (2016) -
Many antipsychotic agents are effective in treating severe mood disorders as well as anxiety.
Synonyms
A medicine that reduces false beliefs and seeing or hearing things that are not there
A medicine that calms serious mental problems like hearing or seeing things that are not there
A medicine that calms serious mental illness like schizophrenia
Strong medicine that calms people with serious mental illness like schizophrenia
A medicine that calms people with severe mental illness such as psychosis
A medicine used to treat schizophrenia that reduces strong symptoms like seeing or hearing things that are not real
How Sedating
- Specialized
- Specialized
- Specialized
- Specialized
- Specialized
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase combines 'antipsychotic' (a medication that reduces psychosis) with 'agent' (a substance that produces an effect), so its meaning — a substance/medication that acts as an antipsychotic — is directly derivable from the parts. Although medical register is somewhat specialized, the compositional logic is regular and cross-linguistically common, so a learner who knows the constituent words will understand it.
Etymology
Antipsychotic agent literally says its job: anti- means 'against' and psychotic refers to serious mental states where people may see or hear things that are not real or hold strong 'false beliefs'. The word agent here just means 'medicine', so the name points to a drug that fights those symptoms and helps calm the person.