{"id":2261,"date":"2023-09-22T00:00:02","date_gmt":"2023-09-22T00:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.villages.com.au\/?p=2261"},"modified":"2023-09-22T00:00:02","modified_gmt":"2023-09-22T00:00:02","slug":"over-55-and-having-trouble-sleeping-researchers-need-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.villages.com.au\/lifestyle\/over-55-and-having-trouble-sleeping-researchers-need-you\/","title":{"rendered":"Over 55 and having trouble sleeping? Researchers need you"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Researchers at the University of Western Australia are looking for adults aged over 55 with insomnia to take part in a new study.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There is no upper age limit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Research supervisor, Dr Melissa Ree said effective insomnia treatment can help with a range of conditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><em>\u201cWe know that poor sleep often leads to problems with mood, anxiety, stress, quality of life and functional impairment. The study will examine how insomnia treatment can improve mood,\u201d <\/em><\/strong><em>she said.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cParticipants need to be willing and able to engage in group therapy for poor sleep, using the recommended first line treatment CBT-I (Cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia).\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Participants\u2019 sleep patterns will be assessed via questionnaires, an interview and a sleep watch. They will also receive four sessions of free treatment at UWA\u2019s Robin Winkler clinic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Dr Ree said insomnia is a huge problem across the lifespan and its prevalence increases with age. Up to 20 per cent older adults have insomnia disorder, and up to half have symptoms of insomnia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><em>\u201cInsomnia is not only unpleasant to live with but it can also have a large impact on daytime productivity, relationships, activity levels, moodiness and anxiety and can make people more prone to developing poor mental health.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sleep disorders are estimated to cost the Australian economy over $5 billion annual through associated medical conditions and reduced productivity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><em>\u201cInsomnia is often treatable, with 70\u201380 per cent of people obtaining good benefit from Cognitive Behaviour Therapy,\u201d<\/em><\/strong><em> said Dr Ree.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cMost people either don\u2019t seek treatment, or take sleeping tablets such as temazepam which have several potential side-effects and questionable long-term efficacy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Cognitive behavioural therapy is the recommended first-line treatment and has been shown to improve mental health outcomes in older people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><em>\u201cIn this study, we\u2019re specifically looking at how CBT-I treatment can improve the mood of older adults. We\u2019re hoping that by gaining a better understanding of how it has a positive impact on mood, that we can better understand how to improve therapies for depression.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Researchers at the University of Western Australia are looking for adults aged over 55 with insomnia to take part in a new study. There is no upper age limit. Research supervisor, Dr Melissa Ree said effective insomnia treatment can help with a range of conditions&#8230;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2110,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,70],"tags":[74,101],"class_list":["post-2261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","category-retirement","tag-aged-care","tag-health"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.villages.com.au/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.villages.com.au/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.villages.com.au/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.villages.com.au/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.villages.com.au/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2261"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.villages.com.au/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2261\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2262,"href":"https:\/\/www.villages.com.au/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2261\/revisions\/2262"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.villages.com.au/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.villages.com.au/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.villages.com.au/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.villages.com.au/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}