Brief ReportsBright-Light Treatment Reduces Actigraphic-Measured Daytime Sleep in Nursing Home Patients With Dementia: A Pilot Study
Section snippets
Subjects
The subjects were selected from an entire nursing home population of 25 patients.7 All 18 subjects with sleep efficiency below 85% were selected to the present study. One patient rejected participation, five patients died before the study commenced, and one died in the early part of the study. The remaining 11 patients (10 women, 1 man) had the following characteristics: mean age: 86.1 years (standard deviation [SD]: 8.9); Mini-Mental State Exam (MMSE) score: 11.7 (SD: 4.2); Clinical Dementia
RESULTS
Actigraphic-measured average nap duration and total nap duration during the day period (rising time to 3:00 P.M.) were both significantly reduced with bright-light treatment (Table 1). A significant reduction of daytime sleep with treatment was also found in the nursing staff diaries, from 0.57 (pretreatment) to 0.26 (treatment; p = 0.042). No significant changes were found in sleep/wake measurements (actigraphy and nursing staff) between pretreatment and baseline recordings 8 months before the
DISCUSSION
Morning bright-light treatment increased daytime wakefulness by an average of more than 30 minutes in the period from rising time to 3:00 P.M. in nursing home residents with dementia. Actigraphic measurements were supported by nursing staff's ratings. The positive effect of bright-light treatment on daytime wakefulness was short-acting and did not last in the post-treatment registration periods. Although daytime sleep was reduced, number of naps remained unchanged.
The small sample size and lack
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Irregular sleep–wake rhythm disorder
2023, Encyclopedia of Sleep and Circadian Rhythms: Volume 1-6, Second EditionLight Therapy to Improve Sleep Quality in Older Adults Living in Residential Long-Term Care: A Systematic Review
2023, Journal of the American Medical Directors AssociationCitation Excerpt :In these studies, light therapy was administered between 7:00 and 12:00 am for at least 30 minutes, and an activity recorder was used to record objective sleep parameters. Some studies42,45,46 used mainly sleep latency and sleep efficiency as outcome indicators, and the results were positive: light therapy reduced sleep latency in residents of long-term care settings, improving sleep efficiency and the sleep-wake cycle. In other words, readjustment of circadian rhythm after light irradiation led to earlier and easier sleep.
Application of light therapy in older adults with cognitive impairment: A systematic review
2020, Geriatric NursingCitation Excerpt :Actigraphy is a reliable technique to study the effect of treatments on sleep and circadian rhythm disorders in people with dementia.60 In addition to using actigraphy, six articles complemented the evaluation of sleep with subjective measures; three of them incorporated an own questionnaire of sleep-wakefulness disturbances,39,46,48 and the other three32,33,51 included daily sleep reports, plus the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI)61 in one case32 and the Epworth Sleepiness Scale, ESS62 in another one.33 Other three articles35,37,63 only used daily ratings by nursing staff, two articles45,64 included only the PSQI, in one study the assessment was made by the Neuropsychiatric Inventory, Nursing Home version (NPI-NH)65 and finally, one article used the Sleep Disorders Inventory (SDI) .66
Structural model for the relationships between indoor built environment and behaviors of residents with dementia in care and attention homes
2020, Building and EnvironmentCitation Excerpt :During our 2-h observation period from 10:00 to noon, the elderly with dementia spent approximately one tenth of the time sleeping or dozing (Category N: 9.2%; see Table 3). Such daytime sleep will influence their sleep quality at night, inducing circadian rhythm disruption [74]. On the other hand, many researchers have found that bright indoor light can have a measurable impact on reducing daytime sleep for people with dementia [75].
This study was supported by the Norwegian College of General Practitioners.