The Impact of Sleep Medications on Psychiatric Disorders

Psychiatrists and sleep physicians may be using the same medications to treat certain issues... so why not work together? Sam A. Kashani, a sleep physician, discusses the impact of sleep medication on psychiatric disorders and how the treatment team can best work together to improve outcomes.

As discussed in a previous video, collaboration between psychiatrists and sleep physicians helps improve "the whole picture" for the patient, especially since psychiatric and sleep clinicians have a lot of overlap in terms of prescribing pharmacologic treatments.

"Collaboration is everything, especially when it comes to prescribing medications," shared Kashani.

According to Kashani, narcolepsy is often underdiagnosed, as there is often a long delay from the onset of symptoms to the time of diagnosis. It is also mistaken for major depressive disorder or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). It is therefore important for clinicians to tease out the disorders they are dealing with, which can be difficult.

"It's very common to have narcolepsy with comorbid ADHD or with comorbid mood disorders or anxiety," said Kashani. "Because there's so much overlap in the medications that are used for these specific entities, I just feel that collaboration is the first and foremost thing."

Dr Kashani is a board-certified sleep medicine physician who practices in Santa Monica, Porter Ranch, and Santa Clarita. He is currently president of the California Sleep Society and is an assistant clinical professor of medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.