RECOVERY & REHABILITATION
Managing Sleep IN LONG-COVID Experiencing sleeping difficulties is very common after sustaining a brain injury, with at least 50% of people who have had a brain injury reporting disturbed sleep as a result of the trauma they have sustained.
T
he situation is often very complex, as described below in figure one, there can be multiple sources of sleep disturbances in this group of clients, which can originate from a range of experiences over a broad time-course. When we are asked to treat a sleep problem for a client who has had a brain injury then a detailed assessment is essential. One which probes for all the factors shown in Figure One below, and one that, preferably, uses objective outcome measurements such as actigraphy. Firstly, and most importantly is the quality of sleep that the client experienced before their injury. The actual location of the injury, and areas of the brain which have been specifically damaged may also have significant effects on a clients’ sleep, as are current and previous medication prescription, psychosocial lifestyle factors (such as activities of daily living, alcohol, nicotine, and caffeine consumption), and the presence of pain and mood disturbances (both of which are very commonly experienced by people who have had such injuries). All of these factors have been important to consider for people living with a brain injury, but with the recent advance of the Coronavirus variants across the globe
the impact of symptoms of covid-19 in the short-term and long-covid in the medium-term have brought additional challenges for the sleep of this group of clients. Fatigue is a very common symptom of long-covid and this can often lead to people sleeping for long periods, socalled “hypersomnia.” Paradoxically, common symptoms of hypersomnia are feelings of tiredness and fatigue. As a result, some of the fatigue experienced by people living with long covid may be driven by their oversleeping (hypersomnia) as much as by the condition itself. There is a potentially useful intervention which may be of significant benefit to those experiencing these negative symptoms, and so potentially promote a faster and more full recovery.
And that is: exposure to natural daylight.
THERE ARE THREE POTENTIAL BENEFITS OF THIS:
1.
Exposure to natural daylight during the day promotes the production of melatonin in the pineal gland within our brains. Melatonin aids with sleep onset and sleep maintenance.
Figure One. Factors which can impact on the sleep of someone who has had a brain injury.
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