A New Prescription for Sleepless Americans: Take Advice Not a Pill

For many sleepless Americans and their doctors, the go-to treatment for insomnia has long been a prescription for sleeping pills. But America may now be waking up to a new era of treatment ushered in by a recent recommendation from the American College of Physicians (ACP) that favors behavioral therapy over meds as the first-line treatment for insomnia. This is welcome news. Insomnia is a prevalent and debilitating condition that affects over 60 million Americans, and with associated healthcare costs that are estimated in the range of $30 to $107 billion each year. This overall total could double when the additional $60 billion in estimated costs associated with lost work productivity are factored in. The ACP's recently published guidelines recommend doctors put aside their prescription pads in favor of cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) as the most effective and safest treatment. This groundbreaking recommendation was based on a systematic review of randomized controlled trials from 2004 to 2015 that examined the efficacy, safety, and comparative effectiveness of psychological versus pharmacologic treatments for chronic insomnia disorder. Evidence showa that CBT-I significantly improved insomnia remission, treatment response, and key sleep outcomes, including sleep quality and wakefulness after sleep onset, in the general population and in older adults. Pharmacologic treatments were not nearly as effective. Evidence also shows that commonly used sleep medic...
Source: Healthy Living - The Huffington Post - Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news