Reestablishing Sleep and Circadian Alignment in Medically Critically Ill Patients Via a Mechanistic Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) of an Intensive Care Unit (ICU) Sleep Chronobundle
Yale University
Summary
More than 5 million patients are admitted to the intensive care unit every year in the United States; most of these patients experience profound sleep and circadian disruption. Promotion of circadian alignment (i.e., alignment of the body's clocks) would make it possible to strategically schedule behaviors such as sleep and eating at normal body clock times, which is predicted to improve sleep quality and metabolic function. This project will test the ability of a sleep chronobundle (i.e., sleep promotion and circadian treatment bundle) to normalize circadian alignment and subsequently test if this realignment also improves sleep and metabolism.
Description
An evidence-based treatment that simultaneously addresses intensive care unit (ICU) sleep and circadian disruption (SCD) is desperately needed. Such treatment is needed because patients admitted to the ICU are at high risk for adverse outcomes resulting directly from acute SCD. It is well established among healthy controls that acute SCD is associated with immediate negative consequences such as metabolic, cognitive, cardiovascular, respiratory, skeletal muscle, and immune dysfunction. Normalization of sleep and circadian processes improves these dysfunctions. In the ICU, sleep and circadian p…