Sedative and hypnotic drugs

A sedative or tranquilizer is a substance that induces sedation by reducing irritability or excitement. Doctors often administer sedatives to patients in order to dull the patient’s anxiety related to painful or anxiety-provoking procedures. Although sedatives do not relieve pain in themselves, they can be a useful adjunct to analgesics in preparing patients for surgery, and are commonly given to patients before they are anaesthetized, or before other highly uncomfortable and invasive procedures like cardiac catheterization , colonoscopy or MRI. They increase tractability and compliance of children or troublesome or demanding patients.

All sedatives can cause physiological and psychological dependence when taken regularly over a period of time, even at therapeutic doses. Dependent users may get withdrawal symptoms ranging from restlessness and insomnia to convulsions and death. When users become psychologically dependent, they feel as if they need the drug to function, although physical dependence does not necessarily occur, particularly with a short course of use. In both types of dependences, finding and using the sedative becomes the focus in life. Both physical and psychological dependence can be treated with therapy.

The sedatives include tranquilizers, hypnotics, benzodiazepines, and anti-anxiety medications (anxiolytics).

Hypnotic (also called soporific) drugs are a class of psychoactives whose primary function is to induce sleep and to be used in the treatment of insomnia and in surgical anesthesia. When used in anesthesia to produce and maintain unconsciousness, "sleep" is metaphorical and there are no regular sleep stages or cyclical natural states; patients rarely recover from anesthesia feeling refreshed and with renewed energy. Because drugs in this class generally produce dose-dependent effects, ranging from anxiolysis to production of unconsciousness, they are often referred to collectively as sedative-hypnotic drugs. Hypnotic drugs are regularly prescribed for insomnia and other sleep disorders, with over 95% of insomnia patients being prescribed hypnotics in some countries. Many hypnotic drugs are habit-forming and, due to a large number of factors known to disturb the human sleep pattern, a physician may instead recommend alternative sleeping patterns, sleep hygiene, and exercise before prescribing medication for sleep. Hypnotic medication when prescribed should be used for the shortest period of time possible.

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