Sleep Disruption in Post-operative Patients in the Neurocritical Care Unit

The role of sleep in patients admitted to the intensive care unit is an emerging field of research. There have been studies that show patients in the ICU have poor sleep including sleep fragmentation, multiple arousals, decreased stage 3 sleep and reduced REM sleep (1, 2, 3). Causes of poor sleep in the ICU include severity of illness, abnormal light exposure, and frequent arousals for medical care. Not only does poor sleep contribute to reduced cognitive function and delirium, but there are also implications for the immune system function and wound healing (4). Polysomnography is regarded as the gold standard for sleep studies, however it has limited utility in the ICU population (5) and alternative methods of sleep analysis need to be investigated to better understand the underlying physiologic mechanisms and subsequent cognitive effects.