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Abstract
Next-day residual effects are a common problem with current hypnotics. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the residual effects of eszopiclone on the physical and cognitive functions of healthy elderly people in the early morning and the day following drug administration. Four men and six women aged 63–72 years were administered eszopiclone 1 mg or placebo in a randomized, double-blind and crossover design. Measures of objective parameters and subjective ratings were obtained at 4:00, 6:00, and every 2 h from 6:00 to 16:00 hours. For the timed up-and-go test, the main effects of time were seen. For the critical flicker fusion, eszopiclone had significantly worse results compared to placebo in early morning (4:00). There were no significant differences between eszopiclone and placebo in other objective assessments. For the sleep latency, eszopiclone had significantly shorter results compared to placebo (eszopiclone vs placebo = 28.4 vs 52.5 min, p = 0.047). Feeling of deep sleep and the number of wake after sleep onset did not show any significant differences between eszopiclone and placebo. Based on the above results, the changes of physical and cognitive functions in the healthy elderly after taking hypnotics, it was found that eszopiclone 1 mg is likely to be unharmful for the healthy elderly. Further studies of elderly insomniacs with midnight awakenings are needed.
Highlights
Previous studies have reported that the prevalence of insomnia is 8–18%, and females are more prevalent than males [1, 2]
There were no significant differences between eszopiclone and placebo in other objective assessments
The association between the residual effects of hypnotics and road traffic accidents is often researched in Western countries, and it has been reported that the use of benzodiazepine hypnotics increases the odds ratio of traffic accident risk up to 1.19 [9,10,11]
Summary
Previous studies have reported that the prevalence of insomnia is 8–18%, and females are more prevalent than males [1, 2]. The sensitivity to the drugs increases and blood concentration tends to rise because metabolic capacity declines. For this reason, the association between the use of benzodiazepine hypnotics in the elderly and the risk of falls and fracture is well established, and the use of hypnotics is often discussed as a public health problem [12, 13]. Some research evaluated the effects of hypnotic on the physical and cognitive functions in healthy adults [14, 15], but research on the elderly is few [16, 17]. Both caffeine and nicotine were prohibited 24 h before each visit to the experimental room set up at a local hotel
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