Tapering scheduler for antidepressants

When antidepressants are discontinued, the medication should not be stopped immediately, but should be tapered over a physician-determined duration to minimize the likelihood of relapse and withdrawal symptoms. Each patient has an individual situation based on drug, dosage, tapering duration, and tapering method, and therefore needs a specific tapering schedule.

This calculator enables the fully automatic generation of such individual tapering schedules with daily dosage sets. Its main features are:

• Automatic compilation of a daily medication schedule with dosage sets.
• Capability of hyperbolic tapering in addition to linear and exponential tapering methods.
• Display of the expected reuptake inhibition effect during the tapering period.
• Consideration of drug parameters such as half-life and Michaelis constant.
• Consideration of split dosage forms such as tablets, drops, etc.
• Automatic generation of a medication schedule printout.

• Fill in the fields according to your physician's instructions.
• If necessary, add or delete dosage forms in the dosage table so that the listed dosage forms correspond to the locally available dosage forms. Specify how many parts the dosage forms can be split into.
• Press "Calculate".
• The graphs show the expected reduction in plasma level and reuptake inhibition effect during the tapering period.
• The tapering schedule shows daily dosages for the tapering period. Press "Print" to print the tapering schedule.
• Have your physician sign off on the tapering schedule.