Use of anti-anxiety drugs in the medically ill

The Stress Clinic at the Maudsley Hospital investigates anxiety due to stress and its pharmacological treatment. Nine stress areas are investigated and their relative severities estimated: social habits, social relationships, life events, psychiatric morbidity, sexual stresses, sleep, stress in old age, menstrual stresses and stress and the heart. From the results a Stress Profile can be constructed for each patient to compare the importance of these different stresses and this can also be used as a measure of change in response to treatment. The benzodiazepine (BZD) anxiolytics can be divided into two groups according to duration of action, medium (8-12 h) and long (30-100 h). Short-acting BZD drugs are particularly useful for situational anxiety, when treatment can be interrupted over night and at weekends. To overcome problems of dependence, withdrawal effects, and daytime side-effects, new non-BZD anxiolytics have been developed: buspirone, alpidem and suriclone. These may be particularly useful for long-term treatment of anxiety. Another alternative is the use of adrenergic beta-blocking drugs of which propranolol and betaxolol have been used in the Clinic, because of their relatively high concentration in the brain when taken orally. Anxiety accompanying coronary heart disease and hypertension can be controlled with anxiolytic drugs and other illnesses with an anxiety component are: sexual disorders, menstrual disorders, asthma, gastro-intestinal conditions, dermatological conditions and chronic illnesses such as malignancy and AIDS. Lack of sleep is a subtle form of stress exerting an adverse effect in almost every illness known to man. BZD hypnotics can be divided into four groups: ultra-short-acting (3-4 h), short-acting (5-6 h), medium-acting (7-8 h) and long-acting (9-12 h). Depending on the nature of the insomnia, ultra-short-acting and short-acting BZD are particularly convenient with minimal disadvantages. Nevertheless, new non-BZD hypnotics are also being developed, i.e. zolpidem and zopiclone. These drugs are relatively short-acting and of equivalent potency to the BZD without problems of dependence etc. Anxiety, as either cause or effect, accompanies many medical illnesses and the use of anti-anxiety drugs as concomitant therapy can both reduce morbidity and improve prognosis.