Sleep Aid
Sleep Loss Accelerates Brain Aging: Study
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Getting a good night’s sleep may help you stay sharp mentally as you age, a new study suggests.
Researchers at Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School Singapore have found that the less seniors sleep, the faster their brains age. These findings suggest sleep deprivation is a significant factor in cognitive decline, including dementia.
Past studies have demonstrated that sleep quality and duration can affect the cognitive functions of older adults, but the latest study suggests why.
The Duke-NUS study examined tracked 66 older Chinese adults, who underwent structural MRI brain scans measuring brain volume and tests of cognitive function every two years. Researchers also asked the seniors how well - and how long - they slept each night.
CPAP improves work productivity for sleep apnea patients
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The study will be presented today (11 April 2013) at the Sleep and Breathing Conference in Berlin, organised by the European Respiratory Society and the European Sleep Research Society.
Previous research has demonstrated that people with sleep apnoea are less productive at work, usually due to excessive daytime sleepiness. This study aimed to assess whether continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) improved productivity at work.
The researchers used the Endicott Work Productivity Scale, a questionnaire designed to assess productivity at work, and the Epworth Sleepiness Scale, a globally accepted questionnaire which assesses daytime sleepiness. Included were 45 patients with sleep apnoea of working age (between 40 and 56 years), who completed the questionnaires at the outset and after 3 months of CPAP treatment.
The results showed that 35 of the patients who had good adherence to CPAP treatment showed significant improvement in their productivity at work and in their daytime sleepiness. The 10 patients who did not follow the treatment programme had no significant improvement in symptoms or work productivity.
10-minute ‘tension tamer’ can help reduce stress and improve sleep
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A simple, 10-minute stress reduction technique could help to relieve stress, improve sleep quality, and decrease fatigue. Researchers from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Bethesda, Maryland, attempted to determine the effect of a brief, stress reduction technique, the 10-minute Tension Tamer, on improvement of stress levels and sleep parameters in 334 patients in a heart health program. After a 30-minute introductory workshop, subjects were given instruction and guided opportunities to practice 10-minute Tension Tamers over the course of four 30-minute visits with a stress management specialist. This brief technique, encouraged at bedtime, involves deep breathing and imagery using the subject’s personal preference. Of the patients, 65% improved their perceived stress by 6.6 points; while those not improving showed worsened stress levels by 4.6 points. Improvers also reported better sleep quality, decreased sleep latency, and decreased fatigue. This study was presented during CHEST 2012, the annual meeting of the American College of Chest Physicians, held October 20 – 25, in Atlanta, Georgia.
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‘Elbow test’ may predict sleep apnea
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Have you ever been “elbowed” by your bed partner because you were snoring? If yes, new research says you could have obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). Prior to polysomnography testing, researchers from the University of Saskatchewan asked 124 patients two questions: (1) Does your bed-partner ever poke or elbow you because you are snoring; and (2) Does your bed-partner ever poke or elbow you because you have stopped breathing? Answering ‘yes’ to being awakened for snoring or apneic spells increased the likelihood of an apnea-hypopnea index (AHI) >5/h (indicating at least mild OSA) compared with ‘no.’ Analysis also showed that as disease severity increased, patients were more likely to be awakened for snoring and apneic spells. Researchers conclude that asking these two simple questions could significantly improve the pretest prediction of a diagnosis of OSA. This study was presented during CHEST 2012, the annual meeting of the American College of Chest Physicians, held October 20 – 25, in Atlanta, Georgia.
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Quality Of Sleep Impacted By Physical Activity
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People sleep significantly better and feel more alert during the day if they get at least 150 minutes of exercise a week, a new study concludes.
A nationally representative sample of more than 2,600 men and women, ages 18-85, found that 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous activity a week, which is the national guideline, provided a 65 percent improvement in sleep quality. People also said they felt less sleepy during the day, compared to those with less physical activity.
The study, out in the December issue of the journal Mental Health and Physical Activity, lends more evidence to mounting research showing the importance of exercise to a number of health factors. Among adults in the United States, about 35 to 40 percent of the population has problems with falling asleep or with daytime sleepiness.
Sleep can boost classroom performance of college students
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Sleep can help college students retain and integrate new information to solve problems on a classroom exam, suggests a research abstract that will be presented Tuesday, June 14, in Minneapolis, Minn., at SLEEP 2011, the 25th Anniversary Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies LLC (APSS).
Results show that performance by university undergraduates on a microeconomics test was preserved after a 12-hour period that included sleep, especially for cognitively-taxing integration problems. In contrast, performance declined after 12 hours of wakefulness and after a longer delay of one week.
According to the authors, recent sleep research has demonstrated that learned information is often replayed during sleep. This reactivation of learned information may help to consolidate, or stabilize, memories. The present study uniquely extends this area of research to a realistic task that students would encounter in a university classroom.
Sleep type predicts day and night batting averages of Major League Baseball players
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A Major League Baseball player’s natural sleep preference might affect his batting average in day and night games, according to a research abstract that will be presented Monday, June 13, in Minneapolis, Minn., at SLEEP 2011, the 25th Anniversary Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies LLC (APSS).
Results indicate that players who were “morning types” had a higher batting average (.267) than players who were “evening types” (.259) in early games that started before 2 p.m. However, evening types had a higher batting average (.261) than morning types (.252) in mid-day games that started between 2 p.m. and 7:59 p.m. This advantage for evening types persisted and was strongest in late games that began at 8 p.m. or later, when evening types had a .306 batting average and morning types maintained a .252 average.
“Our data, though not statistically significant due to low subject numbers, clearly shows a trend toward morning-type batters hitting progressively worse as the day becomes later, and the evening-types showing the opposite trend,” said principal investigator and lead author Dr. W. Christopher Winter, medical director of the Martha Jefferson Hospital Sleep Medicine Center in Charlottesville, Va.
CPAP improves daytime sleepiness even in patients with low levels of symptoms
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Continuous positive airway pressure, or CPAP, can increase alertness and even improve quality of life for sufferers of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), even if their symptoms are minimal, according to a study conducted by researchers in Europe. Patients enrolled in the study reported an improvement in daytime sleepiness within six months of beginning CPAP treatment.
The study will be presented at the ATS 2011 International Conference in Denver.
“Treatment with CPAP clearly reduces daytime sleepiness and improves quality of life in patients with very limited symptoms, at a rate of about half the improvement seen in patients with more severe symptoms,” said Sonya Craig, research fellow at Churchill Hospital, Oxford.
Sleep problems linked to weight gain in middle-age
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Women, try not to think of this if you lie awake at night: having trouble sleeping means you’re likely to gain weight.
As if simply getting older weren’t hard enough, new research shows that middle-aged and older women who have trouble falling or staying asleep may pack on more pounds than their well-rested contemporaries.
A number of studies have found that sleep-deprived children and adults are more likely to be overweight than those who usually get a full night’s rest. But many of those studies assessed people at one point in time, so it was hard to know which came first, the sleep problems or the excess pounds.
Sleep-Deprived Nurses May Struggle to Remain Vigilant During 12-Hour Shifts
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A small percentage of nurses struggle to remain vigilant during successive 12-hour shifts, according to a research abstract that will be presented Tuesday, June 8, 2010, in San Antonio, Texas, at SLEEP 2010, the 24th annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies LLC.
Results indicate that lapses of attention among nurses working successive 12-hour shifts ranged from zero to 48 lapses per vigilance test. Although half of nurses committed no more than one lapse, 10 percent of nurses had nine or more lapses during the testing period. Further analysis revealed that 39 percent of nurses had moderate lapses and seven percent had frequent lapses. Factors associated with lapses included sleep prior to shift, caffeine use and fatigue levels.
“There are a small percentage of nurses that appear to have impaired ability to maintain vigilance during a neurobehavioral test,” said principal investigator Jeanne Geiger-Brown, PhD, RN, associate professor at the University of Maryland School of Nursing in Baltimore, Md.
Sleep apnea as common as asthma in German kids
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A new German study suggests that about 3 percent of school-age children may have the nighttime breathing disorder sleep apnea—similar to the country’s rate of childhood asthma.
The findings suggest that there needs to be greater awareness of sleep apnea as a problem among children, researchers report in the European Respiratory Journal.
Obstructive sleep apnea, or OSA, occurs when the soft tissues at the back of the throat temporarily collapse during sleep, causing repeated breathing interruptions. The major symptoms include loud snoring and daytime sleepiness owing to a lack of deep sleep at night.
Less sleep for kids may mean higher blood sugar
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Young children may be more apt to have high blood sugar, a precursor to diabetes, if they average 8 hours or less of sleep a night, report Chinese and American researchers.
This risk may be even greater among obese youngsters, Dr. Zhijie Yu, at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Shanghai and colleagues note in Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine.
Moreover, Yu said in an email to Reuters Health, shorter sleep seemed to influence blood sugar “independently of a large variety of risk factors,” such as age, gender, birth-related influences, early life feeding or later diet, recent illness, physical activity, body mass, and waist girth.
Stress makes for more sleepless in Taiwan
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More than one in five people in Taiwan suffers from insomnia likely caused by stress due to the economic woes, a figure higher than the global average, researchers said on Wednesday.
The survey of 4,005 people found that 21.8 percent of the population has chronic trouble falling asleep or staying asleep, said Lee Hsin-chien, psychiatry chairman at government-run Shuang-Ho Hospital in Taipei.
Overseas, averages of 10 to 15 percent of the population reports insomnia, he said, while Taiwan’s rate was about 10 percent in 2000.
Stress due to recession on the export-reliant island earlier this year might have contributed to the increase, Lee said.
Is Surgery the Best Answer for Children with Sleep Apnea?
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For children with obstructive sleep apnea, standard care often includes a tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy. But researchers at Saint Louis University say further research is needed to determine if surgery is the best option for these patients.
“We know surgery is associated with improvements in children with sleep apnea, but this research will be the first to allow us to investigate whether or not the surgery causes those improvements,” says Ron Mitchell, M.D., professor of otolaryngology at Saint Louis University and the research study’s principal investigator.
“In the future, the information we gather from this study may help us know when to recommend surgery immediately and when it is most appropriate to wait and see whether the child will grow out of the problem. This will allow us to use healthcare resources more effectively.”
Relationship found between napping, hyperactivity, depression and anxiety
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Napping may have a significant influence on young children’s daytime functioning, according to a research abstract that will be presented on Monday, June 8 at SLEEP 2009, the 23rd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies.
Results indicate that children between the ages of 4 and 5 who did not take daytime naps were reported by their parents to exhibit higher levels of hyperactivity, anxiety and depression than children who continued to nap at this age.
According to lead author Brian Crosby, PhD, postdoctoral fellow of psychology at Pennsylvania State University, previous studies have shown that poor or inadequate sleep is linked with symptoms of hyperactivity, anxiety and depression; researchers involved in this study were happy to demonstrate the potential importance of napping for optimal daytime functioning in young children, as napping is often overlooked in favor of nighttime or total sleep.
