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Counting Sheep with Lewy: Coping with Sleep Disturbances in LBD
August 15, 2024 @ 2:00 pm - 3:30 pm EDT
Sleep disturbances are common in Lewy body dementia (LBD) and can significantly impact health and well-being for people living with LBD and their care partners. These symptoms can include restlessness, difficulty falling asleep and staying asleep at night, being awakened by dreams or hallucinations, and excessive daytime sleepiness.
Being disturbed by these issues regularly can be distressing and lead to negative side effects including increased psychiatric symptoms, mood disturbances, and negatively impacted cognitive performance. Managing sleep symptoms in LBD can be critical for maintaining overall quality of life for people living with Lewy and their care partners.
In this webinar, Dr. Bhavana Patel from the LBDA Research Center of Excellence at the University of Florida, will break down the symptoms, provide suggestions to help you better manage your sleep disturbances and find the support you need to improve your sleep quality with Lewy. A Q&A session will follow.
By the end of this webinar, you will be able to:
- Define the sleep disturbances common in Lewy body dementia (LBD) and describe their varied presentations.
- Summarize strategies for management of sleep disturbances in LBD.
- Identify specialists that can support your sleep with LBD and medications to discuss with your provider that could potentially be helpful.
About Bhavana Patel, DO
Bhavana Patel, DO is currently an assistant professor in the Division of Movement Disorders and Behavioral Neurology at the University of Florida (UF).
Dr. Patel joined the UF Department of Neurology and the Fixel Institute in 2017. After graduating from Butler University in 2008 with a double major in chemistry and Spanish, she received a master’s degree in biology from Purdue University. Dr. Patel completed medical school at the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine in 2013, followed by a neurology residency at the University of Kansas in 2017. She pursued a two-year fellowship in movement disorders and additional training in cognitive disorders and dementias at UF from 2017 – 2019.
Dr. Patel has a personal connection to Lewy body dementia (LBD), and during her training completed additional clinical and research training in LBD. In 2018, she was the inaugural recipient of the Clinical Research Training Scholarship in dementia with Lewy bodies from the American Grain Foundation and the Mary E. Groff Charitable Trust, in collaboration with the American Academy of Neurology.
Dr. Patel’s research interests include improving the delivery of specialized healthcare in LBD, applications of technology to improve health outcomes, and neurostimulation for movement and cognitive disorders. Her current NIH-funded research focuses on developing a LBD-centric telemedicine program with access to a multidisciplinary team of experts in LBD using smartwatch technology to objectively measure life space mobility.
Dr. Patel has presented her research at multiple international conferences including the International Lewy Body Dementia Conference, International Congress of Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorder Society, Academy of Neurology and World Parkinson Congress.
For questions or more information, please contact Rose Heithoff, Education Coordinator, at rheithoff@lbda.org.