Encouraging Findings
Commenting for this news organization, Alex Bahar-Fuchs, PhD, Faculty of Health, School of Psychology, Deakin University, Victoria, Australia, who co-chaired the session featuring the research, said the findings of this “well-powered” RCT are “encouraging,” both for the primary outcome of sleep quality and for some of the secondary outcomes for the care-partner.
“The study adds to the growing evidence behind several nonpharmacological treatment approaches for cognitive and neuropsychiatric symptoms of people with dementia,” he said.
The results “offer some hope for the treatment of a common disturbance in people with dementia which is associated with poorer outcomes and increased caregiver burden,” he added.
An important area for further work would be to incorporate more objective measures of sleep quality, said Dr. Bahar-Fuchs.
Because the primary outcome was measured using a self-report questionnaire (the SDI) completed by care-partners, and because the intervention arm could not be blinded, “it remains possible that some detection bias may have affected the study findings,” said Dr. Bahar-Fuchs.
He said he would like to see the research extended to include an active control condition “to be able to better ascertain treatment mechanisms.”
The study was supported by the National Institute of Health and Care Research. Dr. Rapaport and Dr. Bahar-Fuchs reported no relevant conflicts of interest.
A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.