A single-subject study of imipramine in a mentally retarded woman with depressive symptoms.

A double-blind, placebo-controlled, reversal design was used to assess imipramine. The subject was a young woman, with moderate mental retardation, whose salient clinical characteristics included weight loss, episodes of screaming and crying, agitation, and generally high levels of irritable behaviour. As compared with placebo, 100 mg of imipramine resulted in consistent improvement in terms of increased food consumption, decreases in screaming and crying, and stabilized sleep. Drug effects were fairly specific and a number of other clinical variables were unaffected by treatment. There was no evidence that imipramine impaired cognitive functioning as assessed by IQ performance.