Helping others sleep better every night!
From the category archives:
An online insomnia intervention based on established face-to-face cognitive behavioral therapy techniques appears to improve patients’ sleep, according to a report in the July, 2009 issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
About one-third of adults report symptoms of insomnia and approximately 10 percent meet diagnostic criteria for an insomnia disorder, according to background information in the article. The condition decreases quality of life, impairs daytime functioning, has personal and public health consequences and results in an estimated $41 billion in reduced productivity every year.
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For patients with persistent insomnia, a combination of cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) and the medication zolpidem for six weeks was associated with improvement in sleep, although for a longer treatment period CBT alone was more beneficial, according to a study in the May 20, 2009 issue of JAMA.
Insomnia is a prevalent public health problem affecting large segments of the population on a situational, recurrent, or chronic basis.
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Orexo has announced the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved Edluar (formerly Sublinox) 5 mg and 10 mg sublingual tablets for the short-term treatment of insomnia characterized by difficulties with sleep initiation.
Meda, Orexo’s partner, acquired exclusive worldwide commercial licensing for Edluar in 2008 with expectations to launch the product in the U.S. market during the second half of 2009. Orexo will receive royalties based on Meda’s sales of Edluar.
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About three-fourths of individuals with insomnia report experiencing the condition for at least one year and almost half experience it for three years, according to a report in a peer-reviewed journal.
Insomnia is the inability to fall asleep or stay asleep. “Approximately 30 percent of adults report symptoms of insomnia and 6 percent to 10 percent meet diagnostic criteria for an insomnia disorder,” the authors write as background information in the article.
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If your stuffy nose and headache last for more than two weeks, it may be more serious than a cold. Winter is prime season for sinusitis, as the condition most often results from the common cold. Allergy sufferers are also more likely to develop sinusitis.
About 31 million Americans develop sinusitis every year, leading to 18 million physician visits and $5.8 billion in overall health expenditures according to the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology (AAAAI).
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The National Sleep Foundation seventy million people in the United States suffer from sleep disorders. About 40 million of these suffer from acute sleep disorders, including circadian rhythm sleep disturbance.
Consider Dan, a 23-year old male complaining of insomnia. He can’t fall asleep at night and habitually arrives at work later than his employer’s 8 a.m. starting time. Does Dan have depression, situational insomnia, obstructive sleep apnea or a circadian rhythm disturbance? Or does he just want to start work late?
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A neuro-imaging study in the Sept. 1, 2008 issue of the journal Sleep is the first to find that cognitive processes related to verbal fluency are compromised in people with insomnia despite the absence of a behavioral deficit. These specific brain function alterations can be reversed, however, through non-pharmacological treatment with sleep therapy.
Results of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanning during verbal fluency tasks show that people with insomnia have less activation than controls in the left medial prefrontal cortex and the left interior frontal gyrus, two fluency-specific brain regions. However, participants with insomnia generated more words than controls on both the category fluency task
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