Improving Sleep And Promoting Recovery In Patients With Mild TBI Using Bright Light Therapy

Improving Sleep And Promoting Recovery In Patients With Mild TBI Using Bright Light Therapy

A novel study suggests that bright light therapy may improve slumber, cognition, emotion and brain function following tranquil traumatic brain injury (TBI).

Results present to view that six weeks of morning gleaming light therapy resulted in a marked decrease in subjective daytime sleepiness. This progress was further associated with improvements in the proclivity to fall asleep and nighttime sleep quality. Bright light therapy also affected depressive symptoms.

"Our preliminary data suggests that forenoon bright light therapy might be full of help to reduce subjective daytime sleepiness and to improve nighttime death," said investigator Mareen Weber, PhD, master in psychiatry at McLean Hospital/Harvard Medical School in Belmont, Mass. "Importantly, the examination also shows changes in brain activation for the period of a demanding cognitive task, suggesting that brilliant light treatment might yield changes in brain functioning."

The examination abstract was published recently in one online supplement of the journal SLEEP, and Weber bequeath present the findings Monday, June 3, in Baltimore, Md., at SLEEP 2013, the 27th yearly transactions meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies LLC.

The study collection comprised 18 individuals with a documented story of at least one mild TBI and be careless disturbance that either emerged or was aggravated by the most recent injury. Data were gathered using Multiple Sleep Latency Tests (MSLT), actigraphy and be dead diaries, and all participants underwent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and comprehensive psychiatric and neuropsychological assessments under the jurisdiction and after the intervention.

According to the authors, it has been estimated that at in the smallest degree 50 percent of individuals with TBI continued some kind of sleep disturbance at more point following their injury, and be still has been demonstrated to be indispensable element for brain plasticity and may subsist important for recovery.

"Improving sleep following pleasant traumatic brain injury could prove turning to maximizing recovery from the injustice," said Weber. "Furthermore, bright light therapy is contented and minimally invasive, requiring no medication, and has t any known serious side effects."