• What does anterograde amnesia mean and which drugs can cause this effect?

Anterograde amnesia is a decreased ability to retain new information, you can experience it difficult to make new memories and this can affect your daily life. Drugs that can cause anterograde amnesia is benzodiazepines, like tremazepam and triazolam.

• Name the effects of the sedative-hypnotic drugs on the normal sleep pattern and explain their significance to the patient:

Sedative hypnotic drugs decreases the time it takes to fall asleep and increases the duration of the sleep in patients who normally sleep less than six hours a night. A person should preferably not use sedative hypnotic drugs for longer than one to two weeks otherwise the chances (in the case of benzodiazepines) the person could develop a dependency of the drug. A patient could also become tolerant to the effects that the drug has and in then has to increase the dosage of the drug in order to experience the same effects as previously.

• Which of the sedative-hypnotic drugs are used as a supplementary therapy in anaesthesia?  Can you explain why?

BD’s like diazepam,midazolam and are included in the anaesthesia regime because it disturbs cognitive and motor function that leads to memory loss which is helpful to forget unnecessary trauma a patient might experience.

• Which of the sedative-hypnotic drugs are used as anticonvulsants?

Benzodiazepines are used as anticonvulsants. Like Chlordiazepoxide,Clonazepam,Clobazam,Diazepam,Lorazepam,Phenobarbital

 

• What is the mechanism of the muscle-relaxing effects of some of the carbamates and the BDs?

The carbamates and benzodiazepines induce skeletal muscle relaxation by inhibiting their presynaptic reflexes.

• Discuss the effects of the sedative-hypnotic drugs on the respiratory and cardiovascular systems.

The sedative-hypnotic drugs work in on the medulla which then causes medullar depression which means that respiratory and cardiovascular systems also become depressed by die drugs. That is why the drugs should not be used in patients with prior respiratory or cardiovascular diseases because the depression of these systems could lead to death.