Neuroleptic malignant syndrome: a case report and discussion

Neuroleptic malignant syndrome (NMS) is an emergent, life threatening condition most often seen as an iatrogenic complication of neuroleptic or antipsychotic treatment. It is characterized by a tetrad of clinical features: mental status changes, fever, muscle rigidity and autonomic instability, although it is not necessary for all of them to be present at a same time for working diagnosis to be made. This paper will deal with the case of a 29-year old male patient diagnosed with schizophrenia who developed NMS, presented as a generalized tonic-clonic seizure and high fever, after 191 days of in-hospital treatment. After 13 days of hospital treatment in the Intensive Care Unit of Clinical Hospital Dubrava, the patient is in a hemodynamical and proper quantitative mental state and discharged for further psychiatric treatment at his parent hospital institution.