Within a psychiatric hospital it has been attempted to realize a maximum number of the elements of the therapeutic community. Problems here are the short median stays of patients and the rapid turnover of both patients and staff. What is more, a basic problem of the therapeutic community was encountered, namely that the interests of the individual patient and of the patients as a group are considered as identical. Thus there came about the development of the principle of separate responsibility, whereby a division of responsibility is made between the individual patient and the unit. Work is carried out by multidisciplinary and largely democratized teams.

The present study explores whether memory impairments are found on the morning following intake of the hypnotic zolpidem which is a member of a new pharmaceutical class, the imidazopyridines. The procedure used is novel: it involves testing subjects in their own homes via the telephone. A previous study using this technique found significant deficits in performance on the morning following intake of the benzodiazepines, flunitrazeparn and midazolam, on tasks which load heavily on both the speed and capacity aspects of the human information processing system. Using the same tests, results from the present study fail to find any significant effects on the morning following zolpidem intake.