With the expanding prescription of antidepressants from the group of selective inhibitors of serotonin uptake (SSRI) physicians are faced with some less frequent but serious undesirable effects. The latter include also extrapyramidal motor disorders (EPS). They are anticipated and recognized in classical neuroleptics, during SSRI therapy their occurrence is surprising, sometimes also due to the prolonged interval between the first administration of the preparation and the onset of EPS symptoms. The frequency of EPS and proportion of different types of disorders differs after different preparations. In the submitted paper the authors summarize available findings on the incidence, assumed mechanism of development and treatment of EPS in SSRI. From a review of the literature ensues that acute disorders predominate over tardive ones. In the total number of published disorders acathizia (45 %) is most frequent, followed by dystonia (28 %) and parkinsonian rigidity (14 %). Less frequent are tardive dyskinesia (11 %) and parkinsonian tremor (10 %). The theoretical review is supplemented by four case-records. Three patients were treated with citalopram. In the first patient the authors describe acute dystonia, the second one developed tardive dyskinesia and parkinsonism, the third one acute dystonia. The last case suffered from parkinsonism caused by fluvoxamine therapy.

        Key words: extrapyramidal syndrome, SSRI, citalopram, fluoxetine, paroxetine, fluvoxamine, ser- traline.