Antipsychotic use varies by patient age.

Since their introduction in mid 1990's, atypical antipsychotics have been studied in a ever-expanding number of conditions. To gain a better understanding of current practice patterns, we investigated antipsychotic uses across different patient age groups. In both the 18 to 39 and 40 to 64 age groups, schizophrenia (ICD-9 295) and affective psychoses (ICD-9 296) account for approximately 70 percent of atypical antipsychotic use. In contrast, these diagnoses only represent 41 percent of use in patients age 0 to 17 and 36 percent in patients age 65 and older.