Psychomotor Agitation Following Treatment with Hydroxychloroquine

Abstract

We describe the case of an elderly woman with elderly-onset rheumatoid arthritis, where the use of 4 mg/kg/day of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) was followed by the onset of psychomotor agitation with marked physical and verbal violence towards her partner, including throwing objects at her partner. No disturbance in sleep and no anxiety, nervousness, or irritability had emerged before the onset of her psychomotor agitation. The disappearance of agitation following targeted pharmacologic intervention and HCQ interruption, its re-onset after reintroduction of the drug, and the high score (9) of Naranjo's algorithm are surely linked to the existence of a causal relationship between HCQ and psychomotor agitation. HCQ may produce undesirable effects on the central nervous system, mainly irritability, nervousness, emotional changes, and nightmares. To the best of our knowledge, there are only a few case reports of psychosis due to HCQ. No favoring condition such as pharmacokinetic interactions or a personal and family psychiatric history was present in our patient. The neuropsychiatric manifestations we observed could be considered a bizarre-type adverse drug reaction linked to an individual's hypersensitivity.