• Postgraduate medicine · Jul 1984

    Case Reports

    Insomnia and its treatment. When are hypnotics justified?

    • R Malcolm and J A Gross.
    • Postgrad Med. 1984 Jul 1;76(1):83-90.

    AbstractSymptomatic treatment of transient insomnias is advisable, for without treatment these sleep disorders may become persistent. The drugs of choice are the benzodiazepine hypnotics, which have minimal side effects when used for short periods in properly selected patients. The three such drugs currently available in the United States differ enough in half-life, absorption rate, and potential for drug interactions that they cannot be used interchangeably. A sound selection matches the drug's characteristics with the patient's needs. Transient insomnias must be differentiated from persistent insomnias, which are more resistant to treatment. Hypnotic agents not only are more likely to be ineffective against persistent insomnias but also have greater potential for exacerbating a sleep-related breathing disorder, producing a drug-dependent insomnia, or contributing to drug misuse.

      Pubmed     Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…