Sleep Disorders

Sleep apnea and other sleep disorders are increasingly being recognized as major factors in the etiology and treatment of a host of neurological diseases, but awareness in the neurology community still has room to grow.

Several poster presentations at IEC 2019 suggest that the incidence of comorbid sleep disorders in people with epilepsy is higher than estimated and have a detrimental impact on quality of life and social adjustment.

Neurology News Network for the week ending June 22, 2019.

Four of the 7 patients exhibited significant improvement in all assessed study parameters, which included reduction in the Apnea-Hypopnea Index scale and an improvement in oxygen desaturation index, with 1 patient demonstrating mild improvement; overall THX-110 was generally well tolerated.

The director of behavioral medicine at the Mellen Center for MS Treatment and Research at Cleveland Clinic discussed the importance of screening patients with MS for other conditions for which they are prevalently comorbid, such as depression or sleep disorders.

The director of the center for circadian and sleep medicine at Northwestern University spoke about the importance of recognizing insomnia as a clinical diagnosis since it affects patients 24-hours a day, not just during sleep.

Solriamfetol (Sunosi, Jazz Pharmaceuticals) is expected to be available in July 2019 in the United States.

Neurology News Network for the week ending June 15, 2019.

All told, every patient with RLS in the study had SIBO present, in comparison to general population rates which range from roughly 6% to greater than 15%.

Use of prescription antidepressants and hypnotics was significantly reduced in patients who underwent digital cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia.

The director of the Sleep-Wake Disorders Center at Montefiore Medical Center spoke about the challenges in diagnosing narcolepsy, which often adds to the delay of diagnosis.

Investigators noted that, when considered with efficacy findings in narcolepsy, pitolisant has a favorable risk-benefit profile representative of advancement in the treatment of excessive daytime sleepiness and cataplexy in adult patients.

The autonomic disorders and sleep medicine specialist at Stanford University spoke about the overlap of autonomic disorders in sleep medicine, an often underrepresented portion of the sleep medicine field.

The findings suggest that the benefits of CPAP adherence may translate beyond improving obstructive sleep apnea in older adults with mild cognitive impairment.

The investigational dual-orexin antagonist from Eisai was significantly better at reducing Insomnia Severity Index-measured symptom severity in more than 1000 adults with insomnia in 2 phase 3 studies.

The efficacy of CBT using the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) SleepTM platform has been shown to be similarly efficacious to face-to-face physician encounters in 30 adults with chronic insomnia.

A significant risk for cognitive impairment was observed in adults with short sleep duration and cardiometabolic risk factors, such as hypertension or diabetes.

The sleep specialist and neurologist at Boston Children's Hospital spoke about managing pediatric narcolepsy from a behavioral standpoint independent of pharmacological use.

College athletes may be sabotaging their careers-as well as their performance-when they sacrifice sleep for sports, studying, and socializing.

The investigators sought to compare a 6-week, in-person intervention with CBT for insomnia and a brief education program in patients with MS who reported symptoms of insomnia.

The research fellow in the Department of Radiology at Mayo Clinic Jacksonville spoke about the reasoning for conducting this study and what the findings mean for physicians in clinical practice.

The International Project Team Lead spoke about the results of study endpoints that assessed the potential for next-morning residual effects of lemborexant, which is in development for insomnia.

Suvorexant improved the mean total sleep time by 28.2 minutes for the patients receiving the treatment versus placebo, equating to a mean increase of 73.4 minutes with the orexin receptor antagonist.

Researchers found that cognitively unimpaired patients with apneas had an average of 4.5% higher levels of tau in the entorhinal cortex than those who did not have apneas, after controlling for several other factors.

The FDA announced that eszopiclone, zaleplon, and zolpidem will have a new boxed warning for rare, but serious injuries and deaths as a result of complex sleep behaviors caused by the medications.