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Combinations of eszopiclone and trans 4-(3,4-dichlorophenyl)-1,2,3,4-tetrahydro-n-methyl-1-napthalenamine or trans 4-(3,4-dichlorophenyl)-1,2,3,4-tetrahydro-1-napthalenamine, and methods of treatment of menopause and mood, anxiety, and cognitive disorders

Combinations of eszopiclone and trans 4-(3,4-dichlorophenyl)-1,2,3,4-tetrahydro-n-methyl-1-napthalenamine or trans 4-(3,4-dichlorophenyl)-1,2,3,4-tetrahydro-1-napthalenamine, and methods of treatment of menopause and mood, anxiety, and cognitive disorders description/claims

The present invention relates to compositions and methods for the treatment of menopause and mood, anxiety, and cognitive disorders.

Menopause, which is caused by a lowering of the production of female sex hormones that typically occurs at around age 50, but can occur at much earlier or later ages, can generate disorders such as edema, hot flushes (or flashes), attacks of sweating, muscle and possibly joint pain, sleep disturbances, dysphoria, nervousness, mood swings, headache, palpitations (enhanced frequency of heart rate), dry mucous membranes, pain during intercourse and urinary disturbances. Hot flashes or flushing are characterized by a sudden onset of warmth in the face and neck, often progressing to the chest. Episodes generally last several minutes and are evidenced by a visible flushing of the skin. Often such episodes are accompanied by sweating, dizziness, nausea, palpitations and diaphoresis. Such symptoms can disrupt sleep and interfere with quality of life.

Although the cause of hot flashes is not completely understood, they are thought to be a disorder of thermoregulation within the hypothalamus that is a consequence of declining estrogen levels. The administration of female sex hormones, such as estrogen, is effective in palliating these symptoms, but hormone therapy is fraught with undesirable side effects. Four out of five women have disturbing menopause disorders for at least one year and 25% of women have menopause disorders for more than 5 years. Half of all women have severe disorders. Men may also have hot flashes following androgen deprivation therapy (from bilateral orchiectomy or treatment with a gonadotrophin-releasing-hormone agonist) for metastatic prostate cancer. Menopause and perimenopause may also be associated with mood disorders such as depression and anxiety.

Clinicians recognize a distinction among central nervous system illnesses, and there have been many schemes for categorizing mental disorders. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Ed., Text Revision, (hereinafter, the “DSM-IV-TR™”), published by the American Psychiatric Association, and incorporated herein by reference, provides a standard diagnostic system upon which persons of skill rely. According to the framework of the DSM-IV-TR™, the CNS disorders of Axis I include: disorders diagnosed in childhood (such as, for example, attention deficit disorder or “ADD” and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder or “ADHD”) and disorders diagnosed in adulthood. CNS disorders diagnosed in adulthood include (1) schizophrenia and psychotic disorders; (2) cognitive disorders; (3) mood disorders; (4) anxiety related disorders; (5) eating disorders; (6) substance related disorders; (7) personality disorders; and (8) “disorders not yet included” in the scheme.

Mood disorders are a group of heterogeneous, typically recurrent illnesses including unipolar (depressive) and bipolar (manic-depressive) disorders that are characterized by pervasive mood disturbances, psychomotor dysfunction, and vegetative symptoms.

In its full syndromal expression, clinical depression manifests as major depressive disorder, with episodic course and varying degrees of residual manifestations between episodes. The mood is typically depressed, irritable, and/or anxious. The patient may appear miserable, with furrowed brows, downturned corners of the mouth, slumped posture, poor eye contact, and monosyllabic (or absent) speech. The morbid mood may be accompanied by preoccupation with guilt, self-denigrating ideas, decreased ability to concentrate, indecisiveness, diminished interest in usual activities, social withdrawal, helplessness, hopelessness, and recurrent thoughts of death and suicide. Sleep disorders are common. In some, the morbid mood is so deep that tears dry up; the patient complains of an inability to experience usual emotions—including grief, joy, and pleasure—and of a feeling that the world has become colorless, lifeless, and dead.

Melancholia (formerly endogenous depression) is characterized by marked psychomotor slowing (of thinking and activity) or agitation (eg, restlessness, wringing of the hands, pressure of speech), weight loss, irrational guilt, and loss of the capacity to experience pleasure. Mood and activity vary diurnally, with a nadir in the morning. Most melancholic patients complain of difficulty falling asleep, multiple arousals, and insomnia in the middle of the night or early morning. Sexual desire is often diminished or lost. Amenorrhea can occur. Anorexia and weight loss may lead to emaciation and secondary disturbances in electrolyte balance.

In atypical depression, reverse vegetative features dominate the clinical presentation; they include anxious-phobic symptoms, evening worsening, initial insomnia, hypersomnia that often extends into the day, and hyperphagia with weight gain. Unlike patients with melancholia, those with atypical depression show mood brightening to potentially positive events but often crash into a paralyzing depression with the slightest adversity. Atypical depressive and bipolar II disorders overlap considerably.

In dysthymic disorder, depressive symptoms typically begin insidiously in childhood or adolescence and pursue an intermittent or low-grade course over many years or decades; major depressive episodes may complicate it (double depression). In pure dysthymia, depressive manifestations occur at a subthreshold level and overlap considerably with those of a depressive temperament: habitually gloomy, pessimistic, humorless, or incapable of fun; passive and lethargic; introverted; skeptical, hypercritical, or complaining; self-critical, self-reproaching, and self-derogatory; and preoccupied with inadequacy, failure, and negative events.

Thorough evaluation of many persons with depression reveals bipolar traits, and as many as one in five patients with a depressive disorder also develops frank hypomania or mania. Most switches from unipolar to bipolar disorder occur within 5 years of the onset of depressive manifestations. Predictors of a switch include early onset of depression (<25 years old), postpartum depression, frequent episodes of depression, quick brightening of mood with somatic treatments (eg, antidepressants, phototherapy, sleep deprivation, electroconvulsive therapy), and a family history of mood disorders for three consecutive generations.

Between episodes, patients with bipolar disorder exhibit depressive moodiness and sometimes high-energy activity; disruption in developmental and social functioning is more common than in unipolar disorder. In bipolar disorder, episodes are shorter (3 to 6 months), age of onset is younger, onset of episodes is more abrupt, and cycles (time from onset of one episode to that of the next) are shorter than in unipolar disorder. Cyclicity is particularly accentuated in rapid-cycling forms of bipolar disorder (usually defined as >=4 episodes/year).

In bipolar I disorder, full-fledged manic and major depressive episodes alternate. Bipolar I disorder commonly begins with depression and is characterized by at least one manic or excited period during its course. The depressive phase can be an immediate prelude or aftermath of mania, or depression and mania can be separated by months or years.

In bipolar II disorder, depressive episodes alternate with hypomanias (relatively mild, nonpsychotic periods of usually <1 week). During the hypomanic period, mood brightens, the need for sleep decreases, and psychomotor activity accelerates beyond the patient's usual level. Often, the switch is induced by circadian factors (eg, going to bed depressed and waking early in the morning in a hypomanic state). Hypersomnia and overeating are characteristic and may recur seasonally (eg, in autumn or winter); insomnia and poor appetite occur during the depressive phase. For some persons, hypomanic periods are adaptive because they are associated with high energy, confidence, and supernormal social functioning. Many patients who experience pleasant elevation of mood, usually at the end of a depression, do not report it unless specifically questioned.

Patients with major depressive episodes and a family history of bipolar disorders (unofficially called bipolar III) often exhibit subtle hypomanic tendencies; their temperament is termed hyperthymic (ie, driven, ambitious, and achievement-oriented).

In cyclothymic disorder, less severe hypomanic and mini-depressive periods follow an irregular course, with each period lasting a few days. Cyclothymic disorder is commonly a precursor of bipolar II disorder. But it can also occur as extreme moodiness without being complicated by major mood disorders. In such cases, brief cycles of retarded depression accompanied by low self-confidence and increased sleep alternate with elation or increased enthusiasm and shortened sleep. In another form, low-grade depressive features predominate; the bipolar tendency is shown primarily by how easily elation or irritability is induced by antidepressants. In chronic hypomania, a form rarely seen clinically, elated periods predominate, with habitual reduction of sleep to <6 hours. Persons with this form are constantly overcheerful, self-assured, overenergetic, full of plans, improvident, overinvolved, and meddlesome; they rush off with restless impulses and accost people.

Anxiety disorders are more common than any other class of psychiatric disorder. Panic attacks are common, affecting >⅓ of the population in a single year. Most persons recover without treatment; a few develop panic disorder. Panic disorder is uncommon, affecting <1% of the population in a 6-month period. Panic disorder usually begins in late adolescence or early adulthood and affects women two to three times more often than men. Phobic disorders involve persistent, unrealistic, yet intense anxiety that, unlike the free-floating anxiety of panic disorder, is attached to external situations or stimuli. Persons who have a phobia avoid such situations or stimuli or endure them only with great distress. However, they retain insight and recognize the excessiveness of their anxiety. In agoraphobia, anxiety about or avoidance of being trapped in situations or places with no way to escape easily if panic develops. Agoraphobia is more common than panic disorder. It affects 3.8% of women and 1.8% of men during any 6-month period. Peak age of onset is the early 20s; first appearance after age 40 is unusual. In specific phobias, clinically significant anxiety is induced by exposure to a specific situation or object, often resulting in avoidance. Specific phobias are the most common anxiety disorders but are often less troubling than other anxiety disorders. They affect 7% of women and 4.3% of men during any 6-month period.

One form of anxiety disorder is social phobia, which is a clinically significant anxiety induced by exposure to certain social or performance situations, often resulting in avoidance. Social phobias affect 1.7% of women and 1.3% of men during any 6-month period. However, more recent epidemiologic studies suggest a substantially higher lifetime prevalence of about 13%. Men are more likely than women to have the most severe form of social anxiety, avoidant personality disorder.

Yet another anxiety disorder is Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), a disorder characterized by recurrent, unwanted, intrusive ideas, images, or impulses that seem silly, weird, nasty, or horrible (obsessions) and by urges to do something that will lessen the discomfort due to the obsessions (compulsions). Obsessive-compulsive disorder occurs about equally in men and women and affects 1.6% of the population during any 6-month period.

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder is another anxiety disorder. It is a disorder in which an overwhelming traumatic event is reexperienced, causing intense fear, helplessness, horror, and avoidance of stimuli associated with the trauma. The stressful event involves serious injury or threatened death to the person or others or actual death of others; during the event, the person experiences intense fear, helplessness, or horror. Lifetime prevalence is at least 1%, and in high-risk populations, such as combat veterans or victims of criminal violence, prevalence is reported to be between 3% and 58%.

Acute stress disorder resembles posttraumatic stress disorder in that the person has been traumatized, reexperiences the trauma, avoids stimuli that remind him of the trauma, and has increased arousal. However, by definition, acute stress disorder begins within 4 weeks of the traumatic event and lasts a minimum of 2 days but no more than 4 weeks. A person with this disorder has three or more of the following dissociative symptoms: a sense of numbing, detachment, or absence of emotional responsiveness; reduced awareness of surroundings (eg, being dazed); a feeling that things are not real; a feeling that he is not real; and amnesia for an important part of the trauma. The prevalence of acute stress disorder is unknown but is presumably proportionate to the severity of the trauma and the extent of exposure to the trauma.

Generalized Anxiety Disorder is an excessive, almost daily, anxiety and worry for ≧6 months about a number of activities or events. Generalized anxiety disorder is common, affecting 3 to 5% of the population within a 1-year period. Women are twice as likely to be affected as men. The disorder often begins in childhood or adolescence but may begin at any age.

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