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Inefficient sleep appears to be associated with impairment on tasks requiring higher levels of cognitive processing in war veterans with mild to moderate TBI.
MINNEAPOLIS—Insomnia and other types of sleep disturbance may play a significant role in cognitive deficits, psychiatric symptoms, and recovery of normal performance among war veterans with mild to moderate traumatic brain injury (TBI), according to research presented at the 25th Anniversary Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies.
“Levels of sleep disturbance among war veterans exceeded the general population prevalence,” reported Henry J. Orff, PhD, of the Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Diego, and colleagues. “Poor sleep is a pervasive complaint in veterans with mild to moderate TBI.”
Dr. Orff’s group conducted retrospective chart reviews of 300 veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan regarding their clinical sleep, as well as their psychiatric and neuropsychologic test data.
The mean age of participants was 32, and their mean education was 13.5 years. Each veteran had a mean of two TBIs, with a mean longest loss of consciousness of 16 minutes and a mean longest length of posttraumatic amnesia of 137 minutes; 86.5% of all TBIs were mild, and 13.5% were moderate. The mechanisms of injury included blast-related TBI (25.6%), blunt force TBI (38.4%), and both blast and blunt force mechanisms (36%).
Eighty-five percent of the veterans reported sleep disturbance as measured by the scores on item #16 of the Beck Depression Inventory, a question that addresses changes in sleeping patterns from normal in the past week. In addition, 71% of the sample reported getting less sleep. In a subset of 86 veterans who were administered the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Inventory (PSQI), 100% reported clinically significant sleep disturbance (PSQI global score >5). Furthermore, self-reported sleep latencies averaged 54 minutes, total sleep times averaged 5.4 hours, and sleep efficiencies averaged 77% in this sample.
Depressive symptoms were significantly correlated with a host of sleep complaints, including poorer sleep quality, longer sleep latencies, shorter sleep times, lower sleep efficiencies, more use of medications, and greater daytime dysfunction. Postconcussive symptoms were correlated with poorer sleep quality, shorter sleep duration, and greater self-reported daytime dysfunction.
“Overall, the results suggest that poor sleep in this population may have ramifications for performance on tasks requiring higher levels of cognitive processing, such as executive tasks with a timed component, while having less impact on more basic cognitive tasks, such as those involving attention and verbal memory,” stated Dr. Orff and colleagues.
Inefficient sleep appears to be associated with impairment on tasks requiring higher levels of cognitive processing in war veterans with mild to moderate TBI.
MINNEAPOLIS—Insomnia and other types of sleep disturbance may play a significant role in cognitive deficits, psychiatric symptoms, and recovery of normal performance among war veterans with mild to moderate traumatic brain injury (TBI), according to research presented at the 25th Anniversary Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies.
“Levels of sleep disturbance among war veterans exceeded the general population prevalence,” reported Henry J. Orff, PhD, of the Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Diego, and colleagues. “Poor sleep is a pervasive complaint in veterans with mild to moderate TBI.”
Dr. Orff’s group conducted retrospective chart reviews of 300 veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan regarding their clinical sleep, as well as their psychiatric and neuropsychologic test data.
The mean age of participants was 32, and their mean education was 13.5 years. Each veteran had a mean of two TBIs, with a mean longest loss of consciousness of 16 minutes and a mean longest length of posttraumatic amnesia of 137 minutes; 86.5% of all TBIs were mild, and 13.5% were moderate. The mechanisms of injury included blast-related TBI (25.6%), blunt force TBI (38.4%), and both blast and blunt force mechanisms (36%).
Eighty-five percent of the veterans reported sleep disturbance as measured by the scores on item #16 of the Beck Depression Inventory, a question that addresses changes in sleeping patterns from normal in the past week. In addition, 71% of the sample reported getting less sleep. In a subset of 86 veterans who were administered the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Inventory (PSQI), 100% reported clinically significant sleep disturbance (PSQI global score >5). Furthermore, self-reported sleep latencies averaged 54 minutes, total sleep times averaged 5.4 hours, and sleep efficiencies averaged 77% in this sample.
Depressive symptoms were significantly correlated with a host of sleep complaints, including poorer sleep quality, longer sleep latencies, shorter sleep times, lower sleep efficiencies, more use of medications, and greater daytime dysfunction. Postconcussive symptoms were correlated with poorer sleep quality, shorter sleep duration, and greater self-reported daytime dysfunction.
“Overall, the results suggest that poor sleep in this population may have ramifications for performance on tasks requiring higher levels of cognitive processing, such as executive tasks with a timed component, while having less impact on more basic cognitive tasks, such as those involving attention and verbal memory,” stated Dr. Orff and colleagues.
Inefficient sleep appears to be associated with impairment on tasks requiring higher levels of cognitive processing in war veterans with mild to moderate TBI.
MINNEAPOLIS—Insomnia and other types of sleep disturbance may play a significant role in cognitive deficits, psychiatric symptoms, and recovery of normal performance among war veterans with mild to moderate traumatic brain injury (TBI), according to research presented at the 25th Anniversary Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies.
“Levels of sleep disturbance among war veterans exceeded the general population prevalence,” reported Henry J. Orff, PhD, of the Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Diego, and colleagues. “Poor sleep is a pervasive complaint in veterans with mild to moderate TBI.”
Dr. Orff’s group conducted retrospective chart reviews of 300 veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan regarding their clinical sleep, as well as their psychiatric and neuropsychologic test data.
The mean age of participants was 32, and their mean education was 13.5 years. Each veteran had a mean of two TBIs, with a mean longest loss of consciousness of 16 minutes and a mean longest length of posttraumatic amnesia of 137 minutes; 86.5% of all TBIs were mild, and 13.5% were moderate. The mechanisms of injury included blast-related TBI (25.6%), blunt force TBI (38.4%), and both blast and blunt force mechanisms (36%).
Eighty-five percent of the veterans reported sleep disturbance as measured by the scores on item #16 of the Beck Depression Inventory, a question that addresses changes in sleeping patterns from normal in the past week. In addition, 71% of the sample reported getting less sleep. In a subset of 86 veterans who were administered the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Inventory (PSQI), 100% reported clinically significant sleep disturbance (PSQI global score >5). Furthermore, self-reported sleep latencies averaged 54 minutes, total sleep times averaged 5.4 hours, and sleep efficiencies averaged 77% in this sample.
Depressive symptoms were significantly correlated with a host of sleep complaints, including poorer sleep quality, longer sleep latencies, shorter sleep times, lower sleep efficiencies, more use of medications, and greater daytime dysfunction. Postconcussive symptoms were correlated with poorer sleep quality, shorter sleep duration, and greater self-reported daytime dysfunction.
“Overall, the results suggest that poor sleep in this population may have ramifications for performance on tasks requiring higher levels of cognitive processing, such as executive tasks with a timed component, while having less impact on more basic cognitive tasks, such as those involving attention and verbal memory,” stated Dr. Orff and colleagues.