Treatments for Tourette syndrome in children and young adults: A systematic review

Resumo

Introduction: Tourette's Syndrome (TS) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by motor and / or vocal tics for more than 12 months. TS affects about 0.8% of pediatric patients and is associated with great functional impairment and psychological distress. The present study aims to list and compare the effectiveness of therapies used in children and young people with TS. Methods: PubMed / MEDLINE, Cochrane Library, ScienceDirect, SciELO and Lilacs were used from September 2020 to April 2021 to search for randomized clinical trials with pharmacological, behavioral, physical or alternative interventions for tics in children and young people with ST. Results: 13 clinical trials were included, of which six pharmacological, six behavioral and one of other conformation. The global score on the Yale Global Tic Severity Scale showed evidence in favor of Habit Reversal Training (HRT) and Comprehensive Behavioral Intervention for Tics (CBIT). Evidence from two studies suggests that antipsychotic medications improve tic scores. Evidence from other interventions has shown no conclusive benefit. Conclusions: The present study identified benefits with the use of antipsychotics. The study also found that HRT and CBIT showed improvement in reducing the severity of tics, in addition to not having any adverse effects. These therapies showed significant clinical improvement, but there is no comparison between the use of these isolated approaches in relation to their use associated with medications. In view of the different forms of therapy, further studies are needed to identify the effectiveness and the profile of adverse effects of these interventions.