The Importance of Monitoring Patients' Responses to Medications: Increased Arousal after Administration of Zolpidem in Those with Hypoxic Ischemic Encephalopathy-A Case Study.

In rehabilitation, nurses are the first team members to note or be told when a patient is having a positive or negative response to a medication. In brain injury medicine, medications are often used to augment cognitive or physical rehabilitation by increasing alertness, attention, focus, concentration, improving sleep, decreasing agitation, or easing spasticity and rigidity. Rehabilitation nurses not only should be aware of how medications work but also how medications may work differently in a chronically ill or disabled population. This article describes a 51-year-old man who suffered a hypoxic ischemic brain injury and how his neurological complications were managed with a nonbenzodiazepine medication which the Food and Drug Administration approved for the treatment of insomnia.