Table of ContentsAmbien in the MediaAmbien and Sleep DisturbancesAmbien and the Stages of SleepEffectiveness of Zolpidem as a Sleep AidConclusionToday's media offers many opinions regarding sleep. They cover sleep quality, how to fall asleep more easily, and how sleep affects the body. Many claims made by the media are contradictory. A controversial issue that has become more apparent today is the use of medications to aid sleep. Zolpidem, also known by the trade name Ambien, is a sleeping pill commonly used by adults. Zolpidem receives a lot of negative press due to its potentially dangerous side effects. Under the influence of Zolpidem, people have committed crimes, said things they did not remember, and driven without realizing it (Pressman, 2018). “Sleepwalking” may also occur after taking zolpidem. A recent incident involving television star Roseanna Barr and her malicious statements while taking zolpidem has given further publicity to these concerns. However, zolpidem helps millions of people get the quality sleep that every person needs to function properly throughout the day. The question remains; Is zolpidem safe to use as a sleeping pill? Say no to plagiarism. Get a Custom Essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get Original Essay Ambien in the Media In May 2018, Roseanne Barr, best known for her television sitcom “Roseanne,” used Twitter to post comments racist insults concerning Valérie Jarrett, former official in Barack Obama's government. This behavior resulted in the cancellation of the “Roseanne” remake season at his own expense. His apparent reasoning behind the tweet was his use of zolpidem. Barr also describes in several articles how she often does "strange things" while under the influence of zolpidem at night and has difficulty remembering her activities (Zauzmer, 2018). The statements made by Barr resulted in media debate about zolpidem at an unprecedented level. Thousands of people suffering from insomnia consider zolpidem an easy solution for their sleepless nights, but there are fears that the negatives may outweigh the positives. Ambien and sleep disturbances Zolpidem is a hypnotic medication that acts selectively on neurotransmitters in the brain. If your brain wakes up while you are in a certain stage of sleep, particularly non-REM sleep, sleepwalking may occur. This is a common complaint about Zolpidem. In a study by Suzuki, Hibino, Inoue, Mikami, Matsumoto, and Mikami (2016), they found that after switching to suvorexant, another medication intended to treat insomnia, sleepwalking stopped completely. In older people especially, sleepwalking can be dangerous or cause injury. Frey, Ortega, Wiseman, Farley, and Wright (2011) explored cognitive and motor functioning after treating participants with zolpidem while accounting for sleep inertia. The study included twelve older adults and thirteen younger adults and took place in a sleep laboratory. Baseline testing was first performed on all subjects without the use of zolpidem. One group then received 5 mg of zolpidem approximately 10 minutes before their planned bedtime and one group received a placebo. Two hours after administering the drug, they tested the participants on their cognitive function and walking stability; this method arises from the moment when theZolpidem users usually wake up and may experience complications. Once awake, they had to walk in tandem along a balance beam. It was considered a failure if the participant left the beam due to imbalance. They also completed the Stroop Color word tasks for the cognitive measure. After the study, they concluded that zolpidem significantly impaired cognitive and motor functions when seven of the twelve adults stepped off the beam, and that all participants performed significantly worse on the cognitive test. However, zolpidem improved the ability to fall asleep since the placebo group remained awake two hours past the scheduled sleep time. In the conclusion, the authors explained: "Because impaired tandem gait predicts falls and hip fractures, and because impaired cognition has important safety implications, the use of Non-benzodiazepine hypnotic medications may have greater health and safety consequences than previously thought. » Frey et al. . (2011)Ambien and the stages of sleep Arbon, Malgorzata, and Dijk (2015) compared how melatonin, temazepam (Restoril), and zolpidem (Ambien) target your GABA and MT1/MT2 receptors. The receptors control your brain activity and natural melatonin secretion during your sleep cycle. Before the study, researchers knew that zolpidem targeted specific GABA receptors while melatonin supplements target MT1 and MT2 receptors. What they didn't know was how zolpidem affected your slow-wave activity (SWA) during nighttime non-rapid eye movements (NREM). They used sleep EEGs measured in hertz and polysomnography to measure changes in sleep stages in the sixteen participants. Slow-wave sleep is extremely important for cognitive functioning, primarily memory consolidation. We often talk about sleep-dependent memory processing. Ultimately, they found that zolpidem significantly reduced SWA. Because slow-wave sleep is so important, reducing slow-wave or deep sleep for several nights could have detrimental effects on your brain, especially memory (Roth, 2009). Effectiveness of Zolpidem as a Sleep Aid Although zolpidem has been shown to be dangerous for some, it has become a phenomenon in the sleep world. In a large-scale study conducted by Perlis, McCall, Krystal, and Walsh (2004), they evaluated the impact of zolpidem on people with insomnia who met DSM-IV criteria for insomnia. They had an experimental group and a placebo group. For twelve weeks, participants recorded their medication use as well as their sleeping hours in sleep diaries. Overall, participants who took zolpidem experienced a nearly 50% decrease in sleep latency, number of awakenings, and time awake during the night. They also saw a 27% increase in their total sleep time. All participants improved their sleep quality across the board. However, a case study by Keuroghlian, Barry, and Weiss (2012), based on a physician who worked shifts, highlighted some of the concerns associated with the use of zolpidem. The doctor, a 34-year-old man, had a history of drug and alcohol abuse. He resided at a teaching hospital and often worked shifts of 30 hours at a time. He used zolpidem due to sleep disturbances. After a shift, the doctor had a grand mal seizure. Given that the doctor had a history of.