The CURESZ Foundation was founded in 2016 to bring hope to people suffering from schizophrenia and those who love and care for them. CURESZ was established by Bethany Yeiser and her psychiatrist, Current Psychiatry Editor-in-Chief Henry Nasrallah, MD, and was inspired by Bethany's complete recovery from schizophrenia after 4 years of delusions, hallucinations, homelessness, and disability. Bethany returned to her normal life and graduated from college with honors, thanks to clozapine, which cured her symptoms when several other medications did not work (for more of Bethany’s story, see From the Editor, Current Psychiatry. October 2014, p. 21,24-25 ).
We previously assembled a panel of clozapine experts to whom the CURESZ Foundation would refer patients who have never had a trial of clozapine despite ongoing delusions or hallucinations. We now have a panel of 80 clozapine experts around the country who are willing to receive referrals.
In an unexpected turn of events, after several years of receiving clozapine, Bethany developed tardive dyskinesia (TD) which, fortunately, was successfully treated. Bethany would not have been able to recover from her TD had it not been for the recent FDA approval of effective treatments. The embarrassing personal experience of oro-buccal TD movements that Bethany went through before she improved led her and me to establish a panel of experts in the recognition and treatment of TD around the country. It is estimated that hundreds of thousands of patients with schizophrenia, schizo-affective disorders, bipolar disorder and major depression, all of whom receive first or second generation antipsychotic agents, currently have TD that is not being diagnosed or treated.
We are therefore calling for psychiatric practitioners who have had experience in recognizing TD movements and have treated patients with FDA-approved treatments, to contact the CURESZ Foundation. Henry Nasrallah, MD, the Scientific Director of the CURESZ Foundation, who has had many years of federally funded research experience in TD, will serve as the Chair of this TD Panel.
This is a call for readers of Current Psychiatry who are treating TD and who practice in settings that can accommodate additional patients seeking treatment for their involuntary TD muscle movements in their face, trunk, and extremities. We hope to assemble between 50 to 100 experts to join this national TD panel.
If you would like to be a member of this national CURESZ TD Panel, please go to https://curesz.org/tardive-dyskinesia-panel/ and enter your name, email, work address, and office phone number. We will later organize the list by state and city so that patients and families around the country can contact the nearest expert to get an evaluation for assessment and treatment of their TD.
Thank you and we look forward to working with the experts who say “YESZ” to joining the TD Panel, sponsored by the CURESZ Foundation.