Sleep-Prolonging Effect of Memantine for Short Periods and Low Doses

Among the antidementia drugs, only memantine has a sedative effect. In addition, it also has the effect of prolonging sleep time. However, there are no reports of prolonging sleep time upon commencement of the drugs. Therefore, this study was conducted to investigate the effect of memantine on sleep time for short periods and low doses upon commencement of the drugs. Patients included in this retrospective study were those who commenced therapy taking either memantine 5 mg once daily or galantamine 4 mg twice daily during hospitalization. Galantamine was used as a comparison. The evaluation was made by averaging the sleep time scores (1 to 5 points) for 3 days before and after commencement of the drugs. There was no difference in sleep time scores before commencement between the two groups [memantine group 4.3 (3.7–4.7)/galantamine group median 4.7 (interquartile range 3.3–4.7): p = 0.838]. The memantine group had significantly higher scores after commencement [memantine group 4.7 (4.3–5.0) galantamine group 4.3 (3.0–4.7): p = 0.036]. Memantine may have a sleep-prolonging effect for short periods and low doses. © 2021, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.