TWILIGHT Study: Effect of Light Exposure During Acute Rehabilitation on Sleep After TBI

Study Summary

This study proposes to investigate how well Bright White Light Therapy will work in the acute inpatient rehabilitation units for people whom have experienced a traumatic brain injury for the purpose of treating sleep disruption. Participants will be assessed based on sleep efficiency, thinking abilities, therapy participation, and perception of fatigue/sleepiness. In previous studies dim red light has not had the same effects on function as bright white light, and will be chosen for use as a placebo. Each subject will be randomized to receive 30 minutes of either Bright White Light Therapy or Red Light Treatment each morning for 10 days. To measure the effect of this treatment, the investigators will measure the each participants sleep daily by using an actigraph watch. This watch will record movement continuously. The investigators will also measure the subjects' report of how well they slept, whether fatigue is present, and how attentive they are before and after treatment. Research Hypothesis: In persons with TBI, prospectively compare overnight sleep in a cohort exposed to morning Bright White Light with a comparison group exposed to Red Light in an acute inpatient rehabilitation setting.

Primary Outcome

Sleep efficiency scores derived from actigraphy data will be the primary outcome. We will set the Actiwatch to record activity data in 60-second intervals. Actigraphy data will be automatically scored with Actiware software (Respironics, Philips Healthcare), which uses validated algorithms to determine whether an epoch of activity is "sleep" or "wake" (Cole RJ, 1992). Typically there is a lack of a consistent sleep/wake cycle in the study population, therefore we will be using sleep efficiency a

Interventions

• DEVICE Bright White Light (BWL)
• DEVICE Red Light (RL)