Melatonin Can Help Seniors Get More Sleep

Taking melatonin resulted in small increases in total sleep time, sleep onset latency, and sleep efficiency in adults with insomnia over age 55.

Over-the-counter melatonin appears to provide a measure of sleep for older individuals who have insomnia, a meta-analysis showed.

Among individuals 55 and older, treatment with melatonin significantly improved sleep onset (by 6.36 minutes) and total sleep time (by 18.29 minutes), according to Jennifer Brault, MD, a resident in psychiatry at the University of Ottawa.

Sleep efficiency was improved by 3.54 ...

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15
MAY
0

Tips and Tricks

Sleep Apnea Therapy Might Ease Depression, Too

Positive airway pressure even helps patients who fail to use the treatment as prescribed, study finds.

Positive airway pressure, which is used to treat obstructive sleep apnea, may also help ease symptoms of depression among people with the sleep-related breathing disorder, a new study suggests.

Although depression is common among people with sleep apnea, researchers from the Cleveland Clinic Sleep Disorders Center found that patients who used positive airway pressure therapy had fewer depressive symptoms — even if they didn’t follow the ...

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1
MAY
0

Sleep Apnea

Hospital Noise Fractures Sleep, Slows Healing

Study showed that when sleep was disrupted, even for a few seconds, heart rates increased.

Nighttime noise in hospitals adds up to poor sleep, which may hurt healing when patients need it most, researchers found.

In a laboratory sleep study, recorded hospital sounds of overhead paging, IV alarms, squeaky carts, and the like disrupted sleep and raised heart rates, Orfeu M. Buxton, PhD, of Harvard and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, and colleagues reported.

Electronic alert sounds like ringing phones and IV ...

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15
APR
0

Doctors Orders

Short Sleep May Signal Stroke Risk

Chronically sleeping less than 6 hours per night significantly increased the rate of stroke symptoms among middle-age to older individuals of normal weight who had low risk of sleep-disordered breathing.

People who habitually sleep less than 6 hours appear to be at risk of developing symptoms that may predict future stroke, researchers reported here at the annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies.

Study participants with normal body mass indices (BMIs) who slept less than 6 hours a night had a ...

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1
APR
0

Sleepless Dangers

Restless Leg Syndrome Drug Gets New Indication

FDA approves gabapentin enacarbil after a twelve week trial.

The FDA has approved the restless legs syndrome drug gabapentin enacarbil (Horizant) to treat postherpetic neuralgia.

The drug is administered in one 600 mg dose for the first 3 days of treatment, followed by 600 mg doses twice daily on day four and onward, a statement from makers GlaxoSmithKline and XenoPort said.

Patients with renal impairment should have adjusted doses, the statement added.

Safety and efficacy for the new indication were evaluated in a 12-week ...

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15
MAR
0

Restless Legs Syndrome

Feeling Lackadaisical? Sleep Apnea May Be to Blame

Millions don’t know they have the airway disorder, experts say.

Millions of Americans plod through each day exhausted. Not because they’re working too hard, over-exercising or not taking enough vitamins.

The real reason, experts say, is because they unknowingly have a sleep disorder.

As many as 18 million Americans have obstructive sleep apnea, according to the National Sleep Foundation. But researchers estimate that as many as 90 percent of them don’t know they have it.

Sleep apnea causes people’s airways to become blocked while ...

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1
MAR
0

Sleep Apnea

Sleep Apnea Hurts Kids’ Brain Function

Treatment for kids’ sleep apnea shown to improve attention span.

Obstructive sleep apnea in children produces chemical changes in brain areas associated with learning, memory, and executive function, a researcher said here.

Luckily, treatment for the sleep apnea appears to reverse many of those brain changes, Ann Halbower, MD, of Children’s Hospital Sleep Center in Denver, said here at the annual meeting of the American Thoracic Society.

A small study found that the normalization of the brain chemistry resulting from treatment was associated ...

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15
FEB
0

Sleep Apnea

Too Little Sleep Makes Jack a Dull Surgeon

More than one quarter of surgeons reported being “impaired” as a result of being tired.

Despite new limits on resident work hours almost half of the orthopedic residents at two of Harvard’s hospitals said they were fatigued during work hours, and 27 percent said they were impaired by lack of sleep.

Moreover, the doctors-in-training said they average just a little over 5 hours’ sleep daily during work weeks, Frank McCormick, MD, of Massachusetts General Hospital, and colleagues reported in the May 21 ...

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1
FEB
0

Sleepless Dangers

Poor Sleep Among Preschoolers May Be Tied to Special Ed Needs Later

But, study doesn’t prove a cause-and-effect link.

Researchers found that kids who suffered from problems like sleep apnea and snoring in their infant, toddler and preschool years were more likely to need special education services for conditions such as speech and behavioral problems a few years later.

Although the study found an association between the two factors, it did not prove cause and effect. The higher risk of disabilities could be a statistical fluke, or something else besides sleep problems may explain ...

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15
JAN
0

Sleepless Dangers

Sleep Apnea Linked to Higher Cancer Death Risk

Cancer compensates, spreads in search for oxygen, researcher suggests.

Sleep apnea has already been linked to a host of adverse health problems, such as high blood pressure and heart disease. Now, new research suggests that in people who already have cancer, the sleep disorder may raise their risk of dying from cancer.

People with the most severe sleep apnea — those who have 30 or more episodes of low or no oxygen in an hour of sleep — had almost five times ...

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15
JAN
0

Sleep Apnea

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