Latest in Sleep Medicine News

Sudden unexpected infant death remains a significant public health concern, with South Africa reporting among the highest incidence globally. However, little is known about infant sleep practices, motivations for sleep arrangements, or adherence to safe sleep recommendations within this context. This study explored caregiver and child characteristics associated with potential sleep-related risk, and caregiver motivations underlying infant sleep arrangements, among South African caregivers. A cross-sectional online survey was completed by 201 caregivers of infants. Prevalence of adherence to American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines was determined. A safe sleep composite score, derived from items of the Brief Infant Sleep Questionnaire-Revised, classified caregivers into low-, moderate-, and high-adherence groups. Bivariate associations between demographic characteristics and low-adherence group membership were examined using chi-square tests, with hierarchical multiple regression to identify predictors of adherence to guidelines. Prevalence of motivations for sleep arrangements were determined and compared across demographic characteristics. Bed-sharing and non-supine sleeping was common. Unemployed caregivers were more than twice as likely to fall into the low-adherence group (45.9% vs. 20.5%), and caregiver characteristics explained significant variance beyond child characteristics (ΔR = 0.20, p = .022), with unemployment the only significant independent predictor. No child characteristics were associated with adherence. Feeding, bonding, and safety were the primary motivations for bed and room-sharing, while separate-room sleeping motivations centered on caregiver sleep quality. Adherence to guidelines is complex. Caregiver characteristics were associated with potential sleep-related risk. Findings support safe sleep interventions tailored to caregivers' practical and socioeconomic circumstances, particularly for unemployed and single caregivers.

In-laboratory attended Polysomnography (PSG) is the reference standard for objective sleep assessment. Although portable and wearable sleep technologies have advanced, the evolution of PSG research over the past decade has not been systematically characterized.

This study investigated whether pain severity contributes meaningfully to fear of progression (FoP) among individuals with cancer and assessed the mediating roles of psychological symptoms, specifically pain-related dysfunctional beliefs about sleep and depressive symptoms, in this association.

Most adolescents living with type 1 diabetes (T1D) do not reach targeted levels of hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c), which increases risk for diabetes-related complications. Suboptimal diabetes management may be associated with the burden of coping with T1D for adolescents who are simultaneously adjusting to physical, cognitive, and socioemotional changes. Mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) are associated with improved coping skills and could be useful for adolescents with T1D.

Patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) have poor health-related quality of life.

To increase family physician (FP) awareness of the 2023 Canadian Thoracic Society (CTS) guideline recommendations on pharmacotherapy in patients with stable chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and self-efficacy in implementing the recommendations in primary care to achieve 3 high-priority patient outcomes.

Solriamfetol may improve obstructive sleep apnoea syndrome (OSA) while potentially influencing CPAP adherence.

The relationship between the dreamed body and the physical body remains an open question in sleep and dream research. This study examined whether somatosensory stimulation applied during REM sleep modulates the corresponding dream content under controlled conditions. Using a within-subject design, we compared three stimulation modalities-electrical muscular, galvanic vestibular, and haptic vibration-each paired with a modality-specific sham stimulation. Twenty-four participants completed one adaptation night followed by three consecutive experimental nights in the sleep laboratory. Dream reports were collected following rapid eye movement sleep awakenings after stimulation or sham periods, yielding a total of 120 reports. Dream incorporation of bodily sensations and actions was observed across all conditions; however, generalized linear mixed-effects analyses revealed no statistically significant differences between stimulation and sham conditions for any modality. No evidence for reliable modality-specific dream incorporation was observed under rigorous sham-controlled conditions. Rather than demonstrating robust stimulation-specific effects, these findings suggest that contextual and expectancy-related influences substantially contribute to bodily dream content under laboratory conditions while highlighting methodological challenges in dream incorporation research. By combining multiple somatosensory stimulation modalities with rigorous sham-controlled procedures, the present study provides a methodological benchmark for future investigations of dream incorporation and dream engineering.

Insomnia disorder (ID) is a common sleep-wake disorder marked by persistent dissatisfaction with sleep quality or quantity. Previous studies have shown that sleep plays a critical role in emotion regulation, particularly in fear extinction. This study aims to characterize ID using estimates of the sympathetic arousal state derived from skin conductance (SC)-based observations, and to compare two observation models: the marked point process (MPP) model and the MPP coupled with continuous (MPP+Cont) model. We utilize SC data from a fear conditioning and extinction procedure involving 24 individuals with ID and 24 good sleepers (GS). The SC measurements are deconvolved to extract autonomic nervous system (ANS) activations and the tonic component. The MPP observation model uses only the extracted ANS activations, while the MPP+Cont model incorporates both ANS activations and the tonic component. Both models are employed to estimate the underlying arousal state over time and compute a high arousal index (HAI). We compare the estimated arousal states and HAI between the ID and GS groups to assess alterations in arousal associated with ID. Our results reveal that ID may be associated with impaired fear extinction learning and recall. Notably, the distinction between ID and GS emerges only under the MPP+Cont model, indicating the critical role of the tonic component in arousal estimation. Overall, this study highlights the potential of arousal state estimation for understanding autonomic dysregulation in ID, thereby supporting interventions for fear-centered comorbidities and improving quality of life.