A slow-release formulation of this product, which gives patients a longer lasting effect, is also available. Confusion may improve with a decrease in levodopa dose. Hallucinations and delusions can be treated with clozapine. These movements may be mild or severe and either very rapid or very slow. The only effective way to control these drug-induced movements is to lower the dose of levodopa or to use drugs that block dopamine, but these remedies usually cause the disease symptoms to reappear.
Symptoms gradually begin to return.
The period of effectiveness from each dose may begin to shorten, called the wearing-off effect . These effects probably indicate that the patient's response to the drug is changing or that the disease is progressing. One approach to alleviating these side effects is to take levodopa more often and in smaller amounts. Sometimes, physicians instruct patients to stop levodopa for several days in an effort to improve the response to the drug and to manage the complications of long-term levodopa therapy. Because of the possibility of serious complications, drug holidays should be attempted only under a physician's direct supervision, preferably in a hospital.