Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a highly contagious disease caused by the newly emerging SARS-CoV-2 virus that was first reported in December 2019 and was announced as a pandemic disease on March 11th, according to a World Health Organization (WHO) warning (1). SARS-CoV-2 is mainly transmitted through respiratory droplets and close contact, accordingly, requires treatment in isolation. I...

Data relating to the use of hypnotic medicines from a descriptive epidemiological study of drug use in 55 residential homes for elderly people were analysed. Of the 1888 residents included in the study, 435 (23.0%) were receiving a total of 448 hypnotic medicines. There was preferential prescribing of short-acting benzodiazepines but long-acting benzodiazepines represented 31.7% of all hypnotic...

PURPOSE To determine the proportion of patients receiving hypnotics upon admission to a palliative care unit, the frequency and intensity of withdrawal symptoms after rapid hypnotic discontinuation, and the effect of discontinuation on insomnia and cognitive failure. PATIENTS AND METHODS 120 consecutive admitted patients. Rapid hypnotic discontinuation (1-4 days) was attempted. Insomnia (visu...

NO concentrations in the frontal cortex of anaesthetised rat were measured by using an electrochemical sensor, before and after intraperitoneal (i.p.) administration of a hypnotic drug, pentobarbital (20-40 mg/kg) or a convulsant agent, pentylenetetrazol (50 mg/kg). The results show that NO concentrations were decreased by pentobarbital, while pentylenetetrazole increased the NO levels. These d...

The present study was undertaken to evaluate Tagara and Jatamansi for certain CNS activities to ascertain the basis for their use as a sedative and hypnotics. The drugs were evaluated for hypnotic and sedative, anti anxiety, anti depressant and anti psychotic activities using standard experimental protocol. The data generated suggests that the test drugs Tagara and Jatamansi have complex CNS ac...

OBJECTIVES An estimated 6%-10% of US adults took a hypnotic drug for poor sleep in 2010. This study extends previous reports associating hypnotics with excess mortality. SETTING A large integrated health system in the USA. DESIGN Longitudinal electronic medical records were extracted for a one-to-two matched cohort survival analysis. SUBJECTS Subjects (mean age 54 years) were 10 529 patie...

Patients in general practice complaining of insomnia of recent origin have been studied in order to ascertain which factors may be of value in the detection of those more susceptible to drug dependence. The type of sleep disturbance was found to be of importance and a personal disturbance scale was found useful as a screening test in two-thirds of the patients. No difference was found in the de...

Amnesia following sedative-hypnotic drug exposure is discussed. Anterograde amnesia clearly occurs with many benzodiazepines. Several drugs are assessed: benzodiazepines and two hypnotics in particular that are structurally unrelated to the benzodiazepines but share some of their properties: zolpidem and zopiclone. The amnesic effects of these drugs are described, memory process, biology of mem...