|
| PARTICIPANTS |
 |
Michael Thorpy, MD
Director, Sleep Wake Disorders Center; Montefiore Medical Center
Associate Professor of Neurology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
RAFAEL PELAYO, MD: The true impact of poor quality of sleep on the quality of life of individuals in United States or throughout the world is actually probably impossible to truly calculate. But there is a certain amount of human suffering that goes on with these sleep problems.
ANNOUNCER: And poor sleep is something that affects approximately 60 million Americans annually. Yet many people ignore the problem.
RAFAEL PELAYO, MD: Studies show that people who suffer from insomnia typically wait about twelve years before they seek medical help.
SAUL ROTHENBERG, PhD: It's quite amazing, but it turns out that more than half of people with chronic insomnia never talk to a health professional about their sleep problem. Some of the reasons that we speculate—lack of discussion would be the fact that people feel that sleep problems are a part of life. And that this is something that they need to endure or they should endure or that they should be able to solve their sleep problems on their own.
ANNOUNCER: But it's not just the grin and bear it attitude that prevents people who sleep poorly from seeking help.
SAUL ROTHENBERG, PhD: For some people, there may be a stigma about going to the doctor to discuss a sleep problem, because there is an awareness that there is a relation between people with emotional problems and sleep problems. And it is the case that when people have emotional problems, they are more likely to have a sleep problem than people without an emotional problem. However, that by no means means that a person who has a sleep problem necessarily has an emotional problem.
RAFAEL PELAYO, MD: Another stigma sometimes associated with this is taking medication. That if you go see the doctor, he's just going to give you pills and taking pills is bad, it's sinful; you're going to get addicted.
ANNOUNCER: And while older classes of prescription medications might have had many unwanted side effects, a newer class called non-benzodiazepines are much improved.
MICHAEL THORPY, MD: We now understand the causes of sleep difficulties far better than we did in the past. And we have far better treatments available. So patients that are concerned about whether their physician is going to be able to handle their sleep problems should be reassured that physicians are far better equipped to be able to deal with these problems now.
ANNOUNCER: In years past, there were few options a doctor could offer.
MICHAEL THORPY, MD: Unfortunately, we tend to have come from a time when, although people had sleep problems, they didn't have many ways of dealing with them, and most physicians really didn't understand much about sleep disorders.
SAUL ROTHENBERG, PhD: In the last thirty years, we've developed many non-medication strategies that are very effective for dealing with sleep problems.
ANNOUNCER: Today many sleep experts suggest ways to change bedtime behaviors in efforts to improve sleep.
MICHAEL THORPY, MD: There are a lot of things that patients can do to help their sleep if they have sleep difficulties. We often call these under the name of sleep hygiene recommendations.
One of the most important ones is controlling the time of going to bed and the time of getting up. But there are others, such as avoiding caffeine, avoiding smoking, not having a large meal before going to bed, exercising in the early evening, not late at night. Not napping during the daytime.
ANNOUNCER: Experts often advise people to keep a record or sleep diary of their sleep patterns.
SAUL ROTHENBERG, PhD: What you keep track of, basically, is: how long it takes you to fall asleep, the time you get into bed, how many times you wake up during the night, roughly how long you're awake in the middle of the night, when you get up in the morning and how long you stay in bed in the morning.
ANNOUNCER: Yet while today there are many treatment options, it's often hard to decide when poor sleep needs the attention of an expert.
MICHAEL THORPY, MD: The first thing that they need to do is to look at the everyday factors that may be contributing to their disturbed sleep and see what they can do on their own part to make those adjustments. But if they don't make any headway with that, they should try to see a professional, their physician, as soon as possible so they can get more specific treatment, better understanding of the factors that are contributing to the sleep problem, and if necessary, get appropriate medications to help deal with their sleep problem.
One of the things that we've learned in recent years has been that the more a sleep problem continues, the more ingrained it becomes, the more people become what we called conditioned to that sleep problem so it's a regular, everyday habit. Just a bit like a snowball building up. It gets bigger and bigger as time goes on.
ANNOUNCER: And while sometimes it seems like poor sleep is just a fact of life, experts urge that addressing the problem can mean finally achieving that good night's sleep.
SAUL ROTHENBERG, PhD: The most important thing is not to give up hope and to recognize that sleep can be improved and is every day at sleep centers and through the help of primary care physicians.
|
