SON Home | UW Home | MyUW | UW Bothell | UW Tacoma | HealthLinks | Contact the School | Search SON | Internal Headlines | Briefly | From the Deans Desk Sleep Lab Gets Remodel How sleep patterns affect disease and vice versa is not yet well-understood, but at the UW School of Nursing Sleep Research Laboratory, a summer remodel is allowing researchers to make the most of technology and optimal environments for studying the bod y 's nighttime workings. Established by Betty Giblin, professor emeritus, in the late 1970s, the lab supports research on how sleep patterns affect illnesses and disease symptoms ranging from asthma to arthritis. The $190,000 r e m odel creates a more conducive environment for observing patients and provides improved technology for monitoring their sleep patterns. This summer, the lab moved to the quieter north side of the T-wing, allowing patients to sleep during the day without disturbance from conversations and footsteps of students passing through the halls. It features three bedrooms: a single room with its own private bathroom, and a suite of bedrooms that have a connecting door and a shared bath. This suite not only allows the parents or siblings of a child being studied to sleep in the room next to them, it also accommodates identical twins for a study of chronic fatigue syndrome or older couples participating in a study of how the herb valerian affects sleep. An infrared camera in every room lets researchers monitor and observe patients sleeping. In addition to an upgrade in the laboratory's patient data acquisition and monitoring system, new lighting lets researchers adjust light levels as needed for each specific study. DVD players and flat-screen TVs are also now available for patients, and an additional office provides more work space for the researchers. Research team members Carol Landis, professor of biobehavioral nursing and health systems (BNHS), and Martha Lentz, research associate professor of BNHS, have studied sleep, nighttime hormone patterns, immune function, physical activity and symptoms in patients with fibromyalgia. Their results have helped explain why patients with fibromyalgia feel unrefreshed and in more pain after waking. The sleep lab team's studies, led by Margaret Heitkemper, professor and chair of BNHS, and Monica Jarrett, associate professor of BNHS, also include looking at how sleep affects immune activity in different phases of the menstrual cycle and nighttime hormone patterns and autonomic function in women with irritable bowel syndrome. The researchers, including Gail Kieckhefer, associate professor of family and child nursing, are actively recruiting children with asthma and children with juvenile arthritis for continuing studies of sleep patterns and symptoms in these diseases. Led by Landis, the team also has begun recruiting for a study of valerian in treating sleep disturbance in healthy older adults. For more information contact Suzanne Barsness at (206) 543-9029. Return to Headlines Headlines | Briefly | From the Deans Desk   Copyright © 2008 University of Washington 1959 NE Pacific Street, Seattle, Washington 98195