Patient/caregiver was educated on how to take restoril as follows:

1. Take the medication dose at the same time every day, for the duration prescribed. This can help with maintaining the required therapeutic concentration of medication in the blood and maintain compliance with intake of medication. Restoril is usually taken close to the bedtime. Have a regular sleep routine can help intake of restoril on time.
2. Restoril can induce some nausea and vomiting, when taken on empty stomach. Taking the medication with some food or snack can help avoid these unpleasant gastrointestinal symptoms.
3. Take the restoril capsule as a whole with a glass of water. Swallow the capsule as a whole and do not open or cut the capsule. Opening or cutting the capsule can result in rapid absorption of the drug into the blood stream, thus resulting in toxicity and compromised therapeutic effects.
4. Do not take restoril with alcohol. Both alcohol and restoril cause dizziness and depress the respirations. When taken together, their side-effects on respirations and dizziness can get added up. This can result in compromised safety, lead to severe respiratory depression, and can even be fatal.
5. Observe a regular sleep time every evening, as sleep is a habit that can be trained. Take the dose of restoril about an hour before the sleep time, as it needs about 30 – 45 minutes to show the desired effect of sleep induction. Maintaining compliance with the sleep time and medication intake an hour before the sleep time can help avoid forgetting the medication intake.
6. On some random day, if your schedule changes and you are not going to bed at the usual time, adjust your intake of restoril accordingly. As the medication quickly induces sleep, taking the medication at the usual time and delaying your bedtime, can leave you severely drowsy. Trying to remain active in a drowsy state can invite risk for injury and accidents.
7. Therapeutic effects of restoril taken for relief of insomnia can last for about 8 hours. Restoril carries the risk of inducing temporary short-term memory loss at the end of these 8 hours. If you have a shorter sleep time in bed for the night, less than the 8 hour duration for which restoril acts, you could probably experience the symptoms of short-term memory loss and confusion, when you wake up. This can compromise safety and lead to falls and accidents. So, plan to have atleast 8 hours of restful sleep in the night, if you are taking dose of restoril.
8. If your schedule does not permit an eight hour sleep time for the night, you can avoid taking the dose of restoril. This helps to avoid the risk for confusion and short-term memory loss, during your waking hours the next morning, thus helping to avoid any falls and accidents. Notify your doctor on dose noncompliance. Do not take an extra dose the following day, trying to make up for the missed dose. Taking unscheduled extra doses can lead to drug overdose and toxicity with restoril.
9. Your physician could change the dose of restoril, based on the response you show, relief obtained from insomnia, or other side-effects developed. So, maintain compliance with follow-up physician appointments, to have your doctor updated. Notify your doctor of any unresolving anxiety, muscle spasms, worsening muscle pain and discomfort, episodes of seizures, insomnia, excessive dizziness, or other continuing unpleasant side-effects, so that, a change in plan of care could be considered. Be accommodative to the plan of dose changes, until you show an optimum response.
10. Continue taking restoril as ordered, for the prescribed length of time, even if you experience relief from the symptoms of anxiety, muscle pain and spasms, seizures, and insomnia, depending on the reason for which it is prescribed. Discontinuing the medication abruptly, without physician recommendation, can result in exacerbation of anxiety episodes, precipitation of seizures, muscle spasms and unpleasant withdrawal symptoms of insomnia and hallucinations. Discontinuing the medication should be only on recommendation by your physician.
11. Individuals develop tolerance to the dose of restoril with diminished therapeutic response over time. Do not discontinue taking the medication, as you failed to see the continuing response to the medication intake. Report to your physician regarding any blunting of therapeutic response, with reverting of anxiety episodes, seizures, muscle cramps, nervousness, irritability, restlessness and insomnia. Your physician could consider a change in the plan of care, by changing the medication or increasing the dose of restoril, to provide the desired therapeutic relief. Increasing dose of restoril could increase risk for addiction though, as restoril intake can be habit forming and carries a potential for addiction. Due to the risk for addiction involved, restoril is usually prescribed for short span of time only, for a maximum of 2 weeks. The risk for addiction is even more in individuals with history of substance/drug abuse, as the craving for the desired effect in these individuals will be high. If symptoms of insomnia are not relieved or further worsen within this time period, notify your doctor on the same, to have your sleep disturbance further investigated into.
12. Maintain strict compliance with intake of the medication as ordered, with regards to dosage and frequency, to derive the benefit of the medication.
13. Do not change the dose on this medication without consulting your doctor.