Improving Sleep Patterns After Traumatic Brain Injury
I’m Ed Smith, a Carmichael Brain Injury Lawyer. The medical community has dedicated a significant amount of resources towards the research of traumatic brain injuries, as these injuries have impacted countless people over the past few years. Recent research published by the American Academy of Neurology examined the relationship between sleep and traumatic brain injury.
Brain Injuries Impact Sleep
There are many different symptoms of traumatic brain injuries, including headaches, trouble seeing, memory loss, and even PTSD; however, an often-overlooked symptom of head injuries is sleep disturbance. As people recover, they often realize that they are having trouble falling asleep, staying asleep, or both. Perhaps someone cannot sleep at night yet cannot stay awake during the day. Such sleep disturbances can seriously impact a patient’s quality of life. As people recover from a traumatic brain injury, their sleep pattern starts to improve. This begs the question of whether or not someone’s sleep patterns can be used to track their recovery from a severe head injury.
The Study Correlates Sleep to Mental Performance
The study group took a look at about thirty individuals ranging from high-school aged to close to 60 years of age. Every patient had been hospitalized for a type of traumatic brain injury. Most were severe injuries that placed each patient in a coma and all of the patients spent time in an intensive care unit. The patients were monitored for around eleven days on average. Their sleep was tracked using an activity monitor. Over time, the researchers monitored their consciousness and thinking abilities and correlated these values to their quality of sleep. The researchers found that as their sleep improved, their thinking abilities also improved in a linear fashion. The researchers also tracked their initial injury date, the number of days spent in an intensive care unit, and any medications that they received. Even when adjusting for various comorbidities, the results still suggested that sleep and the recovery process are closely related.
What Does This Mean?
As researchers continue to focus on improving diagnostic, treatment, and prognostic modalities for patients who have suffered neurological damage, new methods will be developed for tracking someone’s recovery process. If research and data suggest that someone’s sleep patterns improve as they recover from a head injury, it is possible that measuring someone’s sleep could be a powerful tool in estimating someone’s recovery time from such an injury. Future studies should find ways to quickly measure someone’s sleep and use this data to predict a possible time to recovery. This is only the first step on an exciting path.
Contact an Experienced Carmichael Brain Injury Lawyer
I’m Ed Smith, a Carmichael Brain Injury Lawyer. Sleep is an essential process in the body’s rest and recovery process that gives the brain a chance to rest and recharge. If you or someone you love has suffered a traumatic brain injury, please give a call at (916) 921-6400 for friendly, free advice. Anyone who is contacting me from outside the greater Carmichael area should use my toll-free line, available at (800) 404-5400.
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Source: Published by the American Academy of Neurology
Image Source: Alessandro Zangrilli, via Wikimedia Commons, released into the public domain
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