Successful treatment of severe parasomnias with paroxetine in a 12-year-old boy.

Night terrors and somnambulism are parasomnias associated with non-REM sleep. Medical treatment is only considered in severe cases with persistent and extended symptoms where there is a high risk of self-injury. We report the case of a 12-year-old boy with severe night terrors and somnambulism whose symptoms completely remitted under medication with the selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitor paroxetine. Its impact on sleep remains unclear as we were not able to show any significant changes in the polysomnographic sleep macroarchitecture. Paroxetine might be an alternative to benzodiazepines or tricyclic antidepressants because it permits subchronic medication, necessitates little dose titration and is well tolerated, with few side-effects, and, in particular, has low sedating properties.