The impact of drug side effects on both simple and highly complex task performance is necessary…

Early antihypertensive drugs were associated with a number of undesirable side effects, which ranged from depression to performance decrements.

Later drugs, such as β-blockers, have been found to be very effective, well-tolerated, and have fewer if any negative secondary effects.

In fact, some desirable consequences of treatment with β-adrenergic medications have been observed.