The Pharmaceutical Company Hoffman-La-Roche first marketed the drug Diazepam with the brand name of Valium. This drug is derived from the chemical benzodiazepine. The drug has many properties that include anticonvulsant, sedative and muscle relaxant properties. This drug is commonly prescribed for treatment of anxiety, insomnia, seizures, alcohol withdrawal and muscle spasms. This drug is sometimes used before undertaking certain medical procedures like endoscopies to reduce tension of the patient. In some other surgical procedure, this drug is used to induce amnesia.

This drug is an important medicine included in the World Health Organization's "Essential Drug List". The drugs included in this list are considered as minimum medical needs for a basic health care system. This drug is one of the most frequently prescribed drugs in the last 40 years.

The medicine became popular amongst the medical professional as its action was found to be much better than barbiturates. The use of the drug was found to be much less dangerous and death due to the overdose of the drug was rarely reported, except incase it was taken with large amounts of other depressants like alcohol and other sedatives. At the beginning, this drug was prescribed mainly for providing short-term relief from anxiety, but this drug is being prescribed more and more for as a palliative treatment of other ailments like certain types of epilepsy and spastic activity. This drug is also used to treat a rare disorder called stiff-person syndrome.

belongs to the family of benzodiazepine family of depressants that are generally prescribed to produce sedation, induce sleep, relieve anxiety and muscle spasms, and to prevent seizures. Generally these drugs act as hypnotics in high doses, prescribed for the treatment of anxiety in moderate doses, and as a sedative in low doses.

Valium is one of those benzodiazepine drugs that acts for a longer duration and is used for the treatment of insomnia with patients with daytime anxiety. These drugs are also used as anticonvulsants.

These groups of drugs are used for the treatment of amnesia, hostility, irritability and vivid or disturbing dreams by daily use of therapeutic doses. The treatment should not be stopped abruptly, because that could create withdrawal syndrome similar to one faced while stopping alcohol consumption. Therefore, the dosage of this drug should be tapered off to prevent such a situation arising.

Considering all these, Valium could be considered as quite a safe drug for treatment of different stress-related disorders, provided it is administered with proper care.