The residual effects of N-desmethyldiazepam in patients

Sixty anxious in-patients complaining of insomnia were treated with either 20 mg of N-desmethyldiazepam, 10 mg of this drug, 200 mg of amylobarbitone sodium, or placebo, given at night. The hypnotic effects of these treatments were assessed by self-rating, psychiatrists' ratings and night nurses' observations after one night's treatment and after a week of treatment and compared with pretreatment values. The residual effects of the treatments were estimated 12 h after ingestion using a series of cognitive and motor tasks. No significant differences between the treatments were found after one night. After the week of treatment, the benzodiazepine groups were achieving the best quality of self-rated sleep with fewest subjective feelings of hang-over. Some improvement in performance was found over time for all groups. However, on two motor tests, the higher dose of N-desmethyldiazepam was associated with less improvement, i.e., some impairment relative to placebo was detected.