TaIlored ManagEment of Sleep (TIMES)

  • Research type

    Research Study

  • Full title

    Tailored Management of Sleep (TIMES) for people living with dementia or mild cognitive impairment (MCI) in the community who experience sleep difficulties.

  • IRAS ID

    313504

  • Contact name

    Chris Fox

  • Contact email

    Christopher.Fox@exeter.ac.uk

  • Sponsor organisation

    University of Exeter

  • Duration of Study in the UK

    1 years, 0 months, 1 days

  • Research summary

    What is the problem?
    Sleep disturbance often affects people living with dementia (PLWD) or mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and can cause carers stress. Sleep medicines help some people, but these can be harmful or stop working if used long-term. For some people, non-medicine treatments, given either on their own or in combination with tablets, may be better. Help needs to be tailored, meaning that doctors, patients, and carers should work together to find the best solution.

    What do people want?
    PLWD/MCI and their carers told us that sleep problems matter to them. They helped develop our idea about the importance of tailored care and have told us they want to continue to work with us to complete the research.

    What we will do?
    We will develop and test a tool to help PLWD, MCI, carers and professionals produce tailored care plans around sleep. We also want to reduce the harm from sleeping medicines. From previous research, we know some but not all of the elements a tool would need. Using expertise from people with lived experience, we will fill the gaps with this new research. We will work together with PLWD, MCI, carers and professionals to design a tool that supports a tailored approach to managing sleep. The research will be conducted over five years. Our first study will involve three elements, observations of GP consultations, focus groups to hear people’s experiences, and a survey.

    What will this mean?
    We hope to improve health and wellbeing for PLWD or MCI who have sleep problems.

    How will we share findings?
    We will produce summaries for different audiences. Dementia and professional organisations will help us prepare and share resources for PLWD, MCI carers and healthcare professionals that help them with tailored sleep care.

  • REC name

    Wales REC 6

  • REC reference

    22/WA/0148

  • Date of REC Opinion

    17 Jun 2022

  • REC opinion

    Favourable Opinion