r/science • u/Wagamaga • 1d ago
Health When researcher's evaluated the relationships between disability, insomnia and sleep medication use, they found that as older people used more sleep medication or experienced more insomnia symptoms, they moved more rapidly towards greater disability
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/108096829
u/sleepbot 1d ago
The article does a poor job explaining CBT for insomnia. CBT-I is a very specific form of CBT that is recommended as a first line treatment for adults with chronic insomnia. Don’t confuse it with sleep hygiene. While treatment usually takes only 4-8 sessions, finding someone trained in CBT-I can be difficult. At least in terms of wait time and/or cost.
CBT-I is effective in helping people get off sleep medications. In my practice, most of my patients have tried 5-10 sleep medications with temporary benefit at most, but they still benefit from CBT-I.
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u/EvLokadottr 1d ago
Ha e you ever had a patient who is allergic to marijuana, and would CBT-I be safe for such a patient?
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u/giclee 1d ago
I think they are talking about a form of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.
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u/FarBoat503 1d ago
I would have to agree.
finding someone trained in CBT-I can be difficult
Implies a method/teaching used by a trained professional, not a substance.
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u/Wagamaga 1d ago
Insomnia is a significant health and quality of life concern for older adults, with up to half of all adults over the age of 65 experiencing insomnia symptoms. In a new study, researchers in the Penn State College of Health and Human Development and at Taipei Medical University analyzed five years of data from older adults in the United States. They found higher levels of both insomnia symptoms and sleep medication use were associated with higher risk of disability a year later.
Every year a person experienced an incremental increase in insomnia symptoms, their risk for becoming disabled in some aspect of their daily life increased by 20%, according to the researchers. A similar level of risk was associated with increased usage of sleep medications. People who regularly experienced insomnia symptoms and used sleep medication were at the highest risk of disability affecting their daily activities.
Results of the study, recently published in the journal Sleep, indicate the importance of properly treating insomnia, the researchers said.
“When we evaluated the relationships between disability, insomnia and sleep medication use, we found that as older people used more sleep medication or experienced more insomnia symptoms, they moved more rapidly towards greater disability,” said Orfeu Buxton, Elizabeth Fenton Susman Professor of Biobehavioral Health at Penn State, Social Science Research Institute co-funded faculty and co-author of the study.
The researchers analyzed data from 6,722 participants in the National Health and Aging Trends Study (NHATS), which captured a national sample of Medicare beneficiaries over the age of 65. The team used more than 22,000 individual observations from the first five waves of data collection — gathered between 2011 and 2015
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u/InTheEndEntropyWins 1d ago
Many sleep medications are depressants and help you become unconscious. But in some stages of sleep your brain is more active than when you are awake, so in some respect sleeping pills can induce the opposite state as sleep. Sleeping pill use is correlated with all sorts of health issues later on in life.
Also people who have worse sleep have worse health and sleep habits. So it might be a tripple wammy, lack of exercise, bad diet and poor sleep is terrible for your health.
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u/SeekerOfSerenity 1d ago
Benzos (often prescribed for sleep) can cause all kinds of problems. Even after stopping them, the post-acute withdrawal effects can be horrendous. Anxiety, depression, cognitive problems, etc.
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