Lesson 20: Common Medications Impacting Work Performance
- Opiods: reduced cognitive performance, alertness, concentration and driving performance particularly within 1st month or when increasing dose
- Benzou2019s: impair driving and alcohol potentiates this
- Antipsychotics: motor or extrapyramidal side effects, sedation, poor concentration
- Older TCAu2019s: impair driving by pronounced anticholingeric and antihistaminic effects e.g. blurring of near vision, potentially affecting performance
- SSRIu2019s: can cause heightened anxiety and GI upset in early few weeks of treatment but donu2019t usually cause sedation and have little effect on performance (beware of long term hyponatremia)
- Lithium: can cause polyuria, polydipsia, tremor, mild cognitive and memory impairment
- Antimigraine e.g. sumratriptan: can cause drowsiness- Pizotifen: dizziness and postural hypotension
