UT Southwestern Medical Center finding: patients in ICU aren’t sleeping well

Here's a theory: people actually sleep better in dark, quiet places.

by PegNews wire

Dr. Randall Friese: getting plenty of sleep, thanks very much.

According to Dr. Randall Friese, lead author of a study appearing in the Dec. 10 issue of The Journal of Trauma: Injury, Infection and Critical Care (which subscription - just my luck! - I recently let lapse in favor of this one), the sleep patterns of patients in intensive care units indicate they are receiving adequate amounts of sleep, but not enough of the right kind.

Basically, the UT Southwestern researchers found that ICU patients are getting plenty of shallow, "superficial" sleep (i.e., they appear to be sleeping) but - judging by the brain wave readings taken by Dr. Friese and other study clinicians - they are not getting nearly enough of the deep, rapid-eye-movement restorative sleep that would be so beneficial to them during their recovery.

Doc Friese found that two factors led to the patients' lack of deep, restful Sominex-style sleep: 1) "the pathophysiology of the disease process itself" (i.e., they're sick and/or hurting) and 2) the stressful environment of the ICU, which has a bunch of beeping, tube-fed machines crammed into every corner making it look and sound like you've been kidnapped by inquisitive (and not necessarily benevolent) space aliens.

Solution: make the ICU environment more conducive to sleep by adjusting the alarms on the machines of the blokes in nearby rooms so they don't wake you up; dim the lights (DUH!); and provide patients with eye shields and ear plugs. There's even talk of using "pharmacological sleeping aids" - aka, Sominex and its more potent brethren - and of changing the schedules of visits by nurses.

But of course they'll need to conduct another clinical trial to determine whether such "adjustments" actually lead to measurable improvements in patient sleep patterns - because that's the way science (and especially medical science) operates.

My suggestion: televised golf tournaments on every monitor.

posted by JM