{"id":2268,"date":"2023-09-22T00:26:11","date_gmt":"2023-09-22T00:26:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.villages.com.au\/?p=2268"},"modified":"2023-09-22T01:08:10","modified_gmt":"2023-09-22T01:08:10","slug":"over-55-and-having-trouble-sleeping-researchers-need-you-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.villages.com.au\/lifestyle\/over-55-and-having-trouble-sleeping-researchers-need-you-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Over 55 and having trouble sleeping? Researchers need you"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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

There is no upper age limit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Research supervisor, Dr Melissa Ree said effective insomnia treatment can help with a range of conditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\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 she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\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<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

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

\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<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

\u201cInsomnia is often treatable, with 70\u201380 per cent of people obtaining good benefit from Cognitive Behaviour Therapy,\u201d <\/strong>said Dr Ree.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\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

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

\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<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2059,"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],"tags":[97,95],"class_list":["post-2268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","tag-explained","tag-tips"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.villages.com.au/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2268","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=2268"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.villages.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2268\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2269,"href":"https:\/\/www.villages.com.au/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2268\/revisions\/2269"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.villages.com.au/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.villages.com.au/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.villages.com.au/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.villages.com.au/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}