:: dreadful dreams :: or how i learned to stop worrying and love the bomb
:: Thursday, March 16, 2006 ::
Ambien, sleepwalking and memory gaps
Ambien, the most popular sleep medication in the US with over 24 million prescription in 2004, may cause sleep-walking, driving, talking, even stealing. Timothy Morgenthaler of the Mayo Clinic Sleep Disorders Center says he has seen many cases of people sleepwalking and sleep-eating after taking the drug, behavior that stopped when they went off Ambien. He reported 5 such cases in the journal Sleep Medicine in 2002 and others at the Minnesota Regional Sleep Disorders Center reported 19 more last year. Reports to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) show more instances of sleepwalking with Ambien than with all the other sleep aids combined.
Somnambulism, or partial arousal, is a disorder in which a person is neither awake or asleep. Ambien might prevent people from waking up completely when something disturbs their sleep, so they end up in partial arousal. This would explain why they are able to carry out routine tasks, albeit imperfectly at times, and why they do not remember doing so when questioned afterwards. The most absurdly hilarious case of Ambien-related somnambulism is probably Lt. Judith Renee Lasswell, 39. Last September, she was arrested for shoplifting after she sleepwalked into a Navy base exchange, picked up an "X-Files" DVD and tried to return it for store credit. As a result, her top-secret security clearance was revoked and, in addition to larceny charges, she could face a dishonorable discharge. "I've never had a problem before in my life until I took Ambien, and it's literally ruined my career and everything I ever worked for," said Lasswell. "I have gaps in memory from the whole time I was on Ambien, which is very terrifying."On March 6, a class-action lawsuit was filed against Sanofi-Aventis in a federal court. Among those involved, a few face criminal charges for things they did while sleepwalking or driving on Ambien, while others claim to have been sexually assaulted while partially aroused (pardon the pun). It's interesting to see whether the sleepwalking defense, automatism in law jargon, will work in these cases. The U.S. People v Huey Newton (1970) 8 CA3d 359 ruled that unconsciousness, (when not deliberetaly self-induced) is a complete defence to a criminal act, even if acts seem soberly goal-oriented. But then what do in cases like the somnambulist Cesare, who went around killing people in the classics film 'The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari' (1920, remake 2005)? In all fareness to Sanofi-Aventis, they do cite sleepwalking among Ambien's various side effects.
To Sleep, Perchance to... Walk, WashingtonPost.com
Sleepwalking, Wiki
Automatism (case law), Wiki
:: alexei 2:44 AM {0 comments} [+] ::
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