Medication Taper and Cross-Taper Schedule Planner

What it does

The planner turns a starting dose, a target dose, a step size, and a step interval into a dated schedule. It has two modes. Single Drug builds either a taper (reduce dose) or a start (titrate up) for one medication; enter 0 as the target for a full taper. Cross-Taper (2 Drugs) tapers Drug A down while Drug B titrates up, on the same step interval and the same dates.

Inputs

• Medication: chosen from the PsychoPharmRef drug database.
• Doses: starting and target dose, in mcg, mg, or g.
• Step size: a percent or a fixed amount (mcg, mg, or g) to change at each step.
• Step interval: time at each dose before the next step, in hours, days, or half-lives.
• Start date: defaults to today.

How the schedule is calculated

A percent step is calculated from the original starting dose, so each step changes the dose by the same amount (a linear schedule, not a percentage of the current dose). The last step lands exactly on the target. When the interval is set in half-lives, the tool reads the drug's half-life from the database (the average of the values listed, converted from days when needed) and shows the equivalent number of days; if no half-life is listed, it uses 24 hours. In cross-taper mode, the half-life of Drug A sets the interval, and if Drug B has no target dose, Drug A's starting dose is used.

Output and limitations

The output is a table of step number, date, daily dose, and notes (such as "Discontinue" at 0), with the number of steps, the interval, and the final dose. Cross-taper output shows both drugs' doses side by side. Schedules can be printed or saved as PDF. These are reference schedules only. Tapering and titration should be supervised by a qualified prescriber, because abrupt discontinuation of psychiatric medications can cause withdrawal, relapse, or discontinuation syndrome. Timing and doses should be adjusted to clinical response, tolerability, and patient factors, and cross-tapers need close monitoring.