CASE: Space traveler
Mr. O, age 69, is a patient at a long-term psychiatric hospital. He has a 56-year psychiatric history, a current diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder, and suffered a torn rotator cuff approximately 5 years ago. His medication regimen is haloperidol decanoate, 100 mg IM every month, duloxetine, 60 mg/d, and naproxen, as needed for chronic pain.
He frequently lies on the floor. Attendants urge him to get up and join groups or sit with other patients but he complains of pain and soon finds another spot on the floor to use as a bed.
Eight months earlier, a homeless shelter sent Mr. O to the emergency room (ER) because he tried to eat a dollar bill and a sock. In the ER he was inattentive, with loose associations and bizarre delusions; he believed he was on a spaceship. Mr. O was admitted to the hospital, where clinicians noted that his behavior remained bizarre and he complained of insomnia. They also noted a history of setting fires, which complicated discharge planning and contributed to their decision to transfer him to our psychiatric facility for longer-term care.
During our initial interview, Mr. O readily picks himself off the floor. His responses are logical and direct but abrupt and unelaborated. His first and most vehement complaint is pain. Zolpidem, he says, is the only treatment that helps.
He says he began using zolpidem approximately 5 years ago because pain from a shoulder injury kept him awake at night. When he could not obtain the drug by prescription, he bought it on the street. One day when living in the homeless shelter, he took 30 or 40 mg of zolpidem, then “blacked out” and awoke in the ER.
His first experience with psychiatric treatment was the result of problems getting along with his single mother because of “petty things” such as shooting off a BB gun in their apartment, he says. As a teenager he was sent to a boarding school; as a young adult, to a psychiatric hospital. After his release he returned to his mother’s apartment. He worked steadily for 20 years before he obtained Social Security benefits, and then worked intermittently “off the books” until approximately 15 years ago. Mr. O lived with his mother until her death 17 years earlier, and then in her apartment alone until a fire, which he set accidentally by smoking in bed after taking zolpidem, forced him to leave 3 years ago. He says, “My whole life was in that place.” He was admitted to a psychiatric hospital for an unknown reason, which was his first psychiatric admission in 40 years. After he was released from the hospital, Mr. O lived in various homeless shelters and adult homes until his current hospitalization.
The author’s observations
An effective and well-tolerated drug with a reputation for rarely being abused, zolpidem is widely prescribed as a hypnotic. Zolpidem and benzodiazepines have different chemical structures but both act at the GABAA receptor and have comparable behavioral effects.1 The reported incidence of zolpidem abuse is much lower than the reported rate of benzodiazepine abuse when used for sleep2; however, abuse, dependence, and withdrawal have been reported.2-4 Zolpidem abuse seems to be more common among patients with a history of abusing other substances or a history of psychiatric illness.2 A French study4 found that abusers fell into 2 groups. The younger group (median age 35) used higher doses—a median of 300 mg/d—and took zolpidem in the daytime to achieve euphoria. A second, older group (median age 42) used lower doses—a median of 200 mg/d—at nighttime to sleep.
There are few reports of delirium and symptoms such as visual hallucinations and distortions associated with zolpidem use.5,6 These reactions have occurred in persons without a history of psychosis. They usually are associated with doses ≥10 mg.
In the ER Mr. O showed a disturbance in consciousness with inability to focus attention and a perceptual disturbance (he believed he was in a spaceship) that developed over hours to days. He met criteria for delirium, possibly caused by zolpidem, but his presentation also could have been attributable to an underlying psychiatric disorder.
ER and inpatient psychiatrists noted Mr. O was intoxicated with zolpidem when the shelter brought him to the ER, but both groups diagnosed schizoaffective disorder and treated him with antipsychotics. They saw his >50-year psychiatric history as evidence of an underlying, long-standing condition such as schizoaffective illness.