AN UNLICENSED drug is being used by nurses to help treat children with learning disabilities overcome sleeping disorders.

No detailed studies have yet been carried out into the effects of melatonin, but nurses in north Staffordshire say it has been successful in cases where behavioural techniques have not worked.

Addressing delegates at the annual conference of the National Network for Learning Disability Nurses, community nurse Sharon Conlon said: 'Parents are usually wary of it at the start because it is unlicensed in the UK. But when we explain that it is a naturally occurring hormone with no reported side effects, they want to try it because they want something to work.'

Eighty per cent of children with learning disabilities suffer from some form of sleep disorder, such as waking in the night, inability to sleep without their parents or refusal to sleep at all.

Melatonin is a naturally occurring substance produced by the pineal gland in the brain and helps people to distinguish night from day. But many children with learning disabilities are not able to pick up on these cues. Giving melatonin as a drug is thought to increase the amount of the chemical in the brain and this stimulates the body to return to its correct rhythm.

Melatonin has been freely available in the United States as a food supplement for more than ten years, and was already being used to treat many children in the north Staffordshire area.

Ms Conlon and her colleague Judy Littlehales wanted to assess properly how effective it was so set up a sleep clinic to help children and their parents. Now they take all referrals from the area. Our first priority is to work on sleep routine and behaviour patterns, which can take months or even years,' said Ms Conlon.

'If that does not work only then do we suggest melatonin and it is used in combination with our sleep routine work. When you think that children as young as four are prescribed traditional sleeping drugs such as temazepam, we find melatonin a more natural alternative.'

From Healthy.net