MS Speaks

One of my big complaints about hospitals is the way the hospital staff insist on waking a person up just to do something. There's also the noisiness of hospitals in general--a problem that could be solved if everyone could have a private room but that would be far too costly for anyone to consider.


On the other hand, just how important is sleep to a person's healing?  Very important, according to all the experts.


A summary of a study done in the Netherlands and commentary from NEJM Journal Watch, September 4, 2018:

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[/size] [/q][/t][/size][/color][/font] FREE FULL-TEXT ARTICLESUMMARY AND COMMENT | HOSPITAL MEDICINE, GENERAL MEDICINESeptember 4, 2018 [/size]How Well Do Patients Sleep in the Hospital?[/size][/b][/color][/size][/font][/color][/font][/size][/t][/color][/font] [/size]Aaron J. Calderon, MD, FACP, SFHM reviewing Wesselius HM et al. JAMA Intern Med 2018 Jul 16[/size]A large Dutch observational study says not very well.Sleep disruption is common in hospitalized patients and is a risk factor for developing delirium. In this cross-sectional study from 39 hospitals in the Netherlands, 2000 hospitalized patients (median age, 68) on the general medicine and surgical wards completed validated questionnaires regarding their sleep the preceding night compared with a typical night of sleep at home. Sleep in the hospital was significantly shorter (mean, 83 minutes less), resulted in more nocturnal awakenings (3 vs. 2), and was of poorer quality, compared with sleep at home. In two thirds of cases, a potentially modifiable hospital-related factor, such as noisy hospital equipment or multiple noncoordinated awakenings, was to blame.[/font] [/size] [/size]COMMENTThe amount of quality sleep in the hospital is likely even worse than reported here, because patients who “did not sleep at all” or who were asleep during the day (presumably because they didn't sleep well the night before) were excluded. This study reinforces the need for hospitalists, nursing leadership, and administrators to implement simple measures improve patients' sleep, such as decreasing noise levels, consolidating patient visits, and shifting the timing of routine vital signs and phlebotomy to prioritize providing a period of uninterrupted sleep.[/t][/t][/size][/font][/font][/color][/font]