U.S. Public and Private Higher Education
News releases, reports, statements and associated documents from public, private and community colleges in the U.S.
Featured Stories
University of Wyoming Study: Migrating Mule Deer Don't Need Directions
LARAMIE, Wyoming, Aug. 24 [TNSscienceresearch] -- The University of Wyoming issued the following news release:
How do big-game animals know where to migrate across hundreds of miles of vast Wyoming landscapes year after year?
Among scientists, there are two camps of thought. First is that animals use local cues within their vicinity to determine where to migrate. Animals might move up to areas with greener forage -- often termed green-wave surfing -- or move down from mountains with deeper snow. The second idea is that animals develop memory of the landscape where they live and then use that
... Show Full Article
LARAMIE, Wyoming, Aug. 24 [TNSscienceresearch] -- The University of Wyoming issued the following news release:
How do big-game animals know where to migrate across hundreds of miles of vast Wyoming landscapes year after year?
Among scientists, there are two camps of thought. First is that animals use local cues within their vicinity to determine where to migrate. Animals might move up to areas with greener forage -- often termed green-wave surfing -- or move down from mountains with deeper snow. The second idea is that animals develop memory of the landscape where they live and then use thatinformation to guide their movements.
Recent research from the University of Wyoming has found that memory explains much of deer behavior during migration: Mule deer navigate in spring and fall mostly by using their knowledge of past migration routes and seasonal ranges.
The study found that the location of past years' migratory route and summer range had 2-28 times more influence on a deer's choice of a migration path than environmental factors such as tracking spring green-up, autumn snow depth or topography.
"These animals appear to have a cognitive map of their migration routes and seasonal ranges, which helps them navigate tens to hundreds of miles between seasonal ranges," says the lead author of the paper, Jerod Merkle, assistant professor and Knobloch Professor in Migration Ecology and Conservation in the Department of Zoology and Physiology at UW.
The findings recently were published in Ecology Letters, a leading journal within the field of ecology. Co-authors of the paper included Hall Sawyer, with Western EcoSystems Technology Inc.; Kevin Monteith and Samantha Dwinnell, with UW's Haub School of Environment and Natural Resources; Matthew Kauffman, with the U.S. Geological Survey Wyoming Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit at UW; and Gary Fralick, with the Wyoming Game and Fish Department.
Scientists had long presumed that migratory behavior was dictated by availability of food resources and other external factors. Where you find resources, you will find species that exploit them, the theory went.
The UW team found it is not that simple. Without the intrinsic factor of landscape memory to guide deer between seasonal ranges, the long-distance corridors of western Wyoming's Green River Basin, for example -- exceeding 300 miles round-trip in some cases -- would not exist in their present form.
"It appears that green-wave surfing helps them determine when to move within a kind of 'map' in their brain," Merkle says. "The timing of spring green-up determines when an animal should migrate, but spatial memory determines where to migrate."
The finding has important conservation implications. Because landscape memory so strongly underlies mule deer migratory behavior, the loss of a migratory population also will destroy the herd's collective mental map of how to move within a landscape, making it very difficult to restore lost migration routes. Patches of potential habitat likely will go unused.
"This is yet another study that makes clear that animals must learn and remember how to make these incredible journeys," say Kauffman, who leads the Wyoming Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, where the research was conducted. "This is critical for conservation, because it tells us that, to conserve a migration corridor, we need to conserve the specific animals who have the knowledge necessary to make the journey."
The study bolsters the findings of a 2018 paper in the journal Science by a UW-led team that found translocated bighorn sheep and moose with no knowledge of the landscape can take anywhere from several decades to a century to learn how to migrate to vacant habitats.
Similarly, strategies such as off-site restoration or mitigation may be unsuccessful if restored habitats are not "discovered" and integrated into the memory of individuals.
The study further makes a case that biologists will not be able to successfully predict migration corridors -- or optimally manage populations -- based on environmental information or range quality alone. Managers will find it difficult to evaluate potential conservation actions without directly gathering movement data, crucial information that reveals the migration knowledge that animals carry around in their heads.
Moreover, the research shows that migrants can obtain greater forage benefits during spring migration using memory of a vast landscape, compared to migrants that rely simply on foraging cues in their local area.
This suggests that the migratory routes we see today are optimized across generations for green-wave surfing in large landscapes. These learned migration corridors are not readily discoverable by animals if they cannot access the memories established by past generations.
University of Southern California-Viterbi School of Engineering: 'We're Going to 3-D Print First Rocket Made on Mars'
LOS ANGELES, California, Aug. 24 [TNSscienceresearch] -- The University of Southern California's Viterbi School of Engineering issued the following news release:
* * *
- Tim Ellis, named to MIT Technology Review's 2019 "35 Innovators Under 35" for his use of massive 3-D printers to build space-bound rockets
* * *
Tim Ellis started college as an undecided-major at USC. Today, the 2012 aerospace engineering alum is revolutionizing the spacecraft manufacturing industry by 3-D printing rockets that may one day take human beings to Mars.
Ellis, who is the co-founder of Relativity Space, an aerospace
... Show Full Article
LOS ANGELES, California, Aug. 24 [TNSscienceresearch] -- The University of Southern California's Viterbi School of Engineering issued the following news release:
* * *
- Tim Ellis, named to MIT Technology Review's 2019 "35 Innovators Under 35" for his use of massive 3-D printers to build space-bound rockets
* * *
Tim Ellis started college as an undecided-major at USC. Today, the 2012 aerospace engineering alum is revolutionizing the spacecraft manufacturing industry by 3-D printing rockets that may one day take human beings to Mars.
Ellis, who is the co-founder of Relativity Space, an aerospacemanufacturing company employing groundbreaking strategies in spacecraft production, has developed a massive 3-D metal printer that manufactures rockets in an unparalleled time and cost frame, using machine learning and the latest in automation processes. His company, most uniquely, is among the first of its kind to 3-D print whole commercial products.
This year, his work earned him a place in MIT Technology Review's "35 Innovators Under 35," a selective list of global pioneers altering the landscape of technological innovation.
"USC Viterbi has had great success in TR 35 in recent years," said Dean Yannis Yortsos, USC Viterbi Dean. "Since 2009, had 12 winners, 8 of which were women. Last year, for the first time, one of our Ph.D. students earned a place in the MIT TR 35 and this year, an alum, Tim Ellis."
Staying true to his mission to change the world, Ellis holds firm to one long-term goal, both for himself and his company.
"We're going to 3-D print the first rocket made on Mars," he said.
The Origin Story
Growing up in Plano, Texas, Ellis developed an early passion for film and writing, spending his free time filming homemade zombie movies with friends. Upon being admitted to USC's Thematic Option program, he set his sights on becoming a screenwriter. Space exploration and rocket design never quite captured his attention until the start of his sophomore year at USC.
"I joined a student group after my freshman year called the USC Rocket Propulsion Lab," said Ellis, reminiscing on one of his most cherished student experiences. "I wasn't very excited about aerospace after my freshman year because planes always felt like a solved problem."
Following a trip to the Mojave Desert, the testing ground for USC RPL's rockets, Ellis witnessed his first engine test.
"I was absorbed," he said. "Because of that experience, this is the advice I give to students: get involved in hands-on projects. It just makes school more valuable because it gives you context, and you finally understand why you're learning that differential equation, that circuit diagram, or that software line of code."
Around that time, he met Jordan Noone, '14 aerospace engineering, his future co-founder in Relativity Space and the company's current CTO. Their drive and energy helped forge an ambitious friendship at the heart of their shared affinity for rockets.
Ellis' own success at RPL brought him to the fore of three consecutive internship positions with Blue Origin, a private space exploration company founded by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.
"I was tasked with moving from a blank sheet of paper to a fully working product," Ellis recalled. "I'd have to do all of it: learning, design, analysis, manufacturing, assemblage and testing, all in a very fast time frame." He eventually became a full-time employee at Blue Origin for two years, creating the company's first metal 3-D printing program.
"I spent nights and weekends working on this program because it wasn't my main job and no one asked me to do it," Ellis said. "But I was just very possessed with this idea that 3-D printing was going to be the future of rocket manufacturing."
Everything is Relativity
Ellis shared Elon Musk's vision of enabling humanity to become a truly interplanetary species. To create a company that broadly aspired to make humans multi-planetary, he left Blue Origin to start Relativity, alongside former RPL colleague, Noone, who was working for Space-X at the time.
The company's core mission, to 3-D print the first rocket made on Mars, was more than just an attention-drawing concept within the aerospace industry's greater context. As companies like Space X and Blue Origin sought to launch humans to Mars, Ellis wanted to launch the machinery that would build everything needed to sustain the eventual colonization of the planet.
"Within a week, I decided to cold email Mark Cuban for a starting investment, typing every possible email address he could have," Ellis said. "I sent him a message, and within five minutes he replied, saying he would give us half a million dollars."
That same week, Ellis applied to Y-Combinator, a universally renowned start-up accelerator associated with the success and early development of companies like Reddit, DropBox, and Airbnb.
These initial triumphs may have been a testament to Relativity Space's immense potential, but even Ellis is quick to admit this sort of introduction remains an anomaly in the start-up world. Every part of the process thereafter proved a tremendous challenge.
"I would say relentlessness is the most important skill-set I've learned," Ellis said, reflecting on the seemingly endless stream of hurdles he encounters as Relativity CEO. "To me, relentlessness is the number-one indicator of success. You might reach out to 100 people and hear 'no' 99 times, but you only need one 'yes,' because that one 'yes' can get you 15 million dollars."
Back to The Present
Today, Relativity Space has grown to 96 employees, raising over 45 million dollars in investment funds and closing hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of U.S. government infrastructure partnerships. The company has acquired exclusive access to distinguished launch sites, NASA testing sites and the Stennis Space Center, among others.
"I believe what we are doing is inevitable," Ellis said. "I don't see a future where, in 50 years, rockets are not 3-D printed. It just wouldn't make sense because it is so fundamentally faster and cheaper. We know we need 3-D printing to manufacture stuff on other planets."
Relativity Space is now on track for its first orbital launch in less than two years from the company's launch site in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
"That's going to be a huge milestone, not just for the company, but for the world," Ellis said. "It'll be the first time an entirely 3-D printed product is flown to space. It's a coming-of-age story for 3-D printing."
Rochester Institute of Technology Researchers Help Develop Practical New Method for Measuring Quantum Entanglement
ROCHESTER, New York, Aug. 24 [TNSscienceresearch] -- Rochester Institute of Technology issued the following news release:
* * *
- Technique can help advance quantum computing and secure communication technologies
* * *
Rochester Institute of Technology researchers have helped develop a new technique for quantifying entanglement that has major implications for developing the next generation of technology in computing, simulation, secure communication and other fields. The researchers outlined their new method for measuring entanglement in a recent Nature Communications article.
When two quantum
... Show Full Article
ROCHESTER, New York, Aug. 24 [TNSscienceresearch] -- Rochester Institute of Technology issued the following news release:
* * *
- Technique can help advance quantum computing and secure communication technologies
* * *
Rochester Institute of Technology researchers have helped develop a new technique for quantifying entanglement that has major implications for developing the next generation of technology in computing, simulation, secure communication and other fields. The researchers outlined their new method for measuring entanglement in a recent Nature Communications article.
When two quantumparticles--such as photons, electrons or atoms--become entangled, they have special correlations that show up in their measurements even when the particles are separated by an enormous distance. This unique property, which can only be explained through quantum mechanics, is at the heart of many of the technologies as part of the National Quantum Initiative.
"Quantum entanglement is a resource that can be used to do important tasks such as quantum computing or secure communication," said Assistant Professor Gregory Howland, a member of RIT's Future Photon Initiative. "Two people that have entangled quantum particles can generate an unbreakable key for sending messages back and forth to one another in such a way that if some third party intercepts the message, by the laws of physics it's impossible for them to decode the message."
As quantum technologies become more complex, users will need a way to calculate how much quantum entanglement exists within a given system. For the system in this study--involving spatially entangled photon pairs--the new technique needed a million-times fewer measurements than previous methods. And because the technique is based on information theory, the measurement technique has the added benefit of never overestimating how much entanglement is in a system.
"This turns out to be critical because it means we never accidentally tell you that you have more of the resource than you really have," Howland said. "It's especially important for something like secure communication, where you're trying to avoid an adversary intercepting a message."
The full article is available at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-10810-z.
Report Shows West Texas A&M University Students Graduate With 11th Lowest Loan Debt in State
CANYON, Texas, Aug. 24 [TNSeducationresearch] -- West Texas A&M University issued the following news:
West Texas A&M University is listed as having the 11th-lowest average student loan debt per borrower among schools in Texas, according to a recent study.
The Student Loan Debt by School and By State Report, published by LendEDU, ranked 45 institutions of higher education in the state based on how much debt graduates accumulate.
"West Texas A&M's average student loan debt per borrower figure was very commendable," said Michael Brown, research analyst with LendEDU. "Not only did the school have
... Show Full Article
CANYON, Texas, Aug. 24 [TNSeducationresearch] -- West Texas A&M University issued the following news:
West Texas A&M University is listed as having the 11th-lowest average student loan debt per borrower among schools in Texas, according to a recent study.
The Student Loan Debt by School and By State Report, published by LendEDU, ranked 45 institutions of higher education in the state based on how much debt graduates accumulate.
"West Texas A&M's average student loan debt per borrower figure was very commendable," said Michael Brown, research analyst with LendEDU. "Not only did the school havethe 11th lowest figure in the state of Texas, but the 156th lowest figure amongst nearly 1,000 schools nationally."
WT students graduate with an average of $23,670 in student loan debt, according to the report, which is below the national average of $28,565. The average among of student loan debt per borrower in Texas is $27,342.
The report also shows that WT decreased its percentage of graduates with student loan debt by 1.5 percent in the past year.
WT's low student loan debt is due in part to its affordable tuition rates, offerings of scholarships and grants, and cost of living, among other factors, Brown said.
LendEDU, a personal finance marketplace, has published its Student Loan Debt by School by State Report since 2015. The aim of the report is to educate consumers - primarily students - as they consider institutions of higher education.
To learn more about WT's LendEDU ranking, contact Brown at 800-984-5694.
Princeton University: 'She Roars' Podcast Discusses Immigration With Maribel Hernandez Rivera
PRINCETON, New Jersey, Aug. 24 [TNSsociologyresearch] -- Princeton University issued the following news release:
The latest episode of the "She Roars" (https://sheroarspodcast.princeton.edu/) podcast features Maribel Hernandez Rivera, a 2010 graduate alumna, reflecting on her childhood experience as an undocumented immigrant and now a champion of immigrant rights. She works as district director for Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez after a previous position in the New York City Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs.
Maribel attributes her personal success -- measured in scholarships from Phillips
... Show Full Article
PRINCETON, New Jersey, Aug. 24 [TNSsociologyresearch] -- Princeton University issued the following news release:
The latest episode of the "She Roars" (https://sheroarspodcast.princeton.edu/) podcast features Maribel Hernandez Rivera, a 2010 graduate alumna, reflecting on her childhood experience as an undocumented immigrant and now a champion of immigrant rights. She works as district director for Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez after a previous position in the New York City Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs.
Maribel attributes her personal success -- measured in scholarships from PhillipsExeter Academy, Harvard, Princeton and NYU -- to extraordinary luck and exceptional mentors. She also describes achingly difficult family experiences that propelled her towards a career focused on immigrants.
The death of Maribel's father was a pivotal moment. He was killed in a car accident after driving his son, Maribel's brother, from Texas to Norfolk, Virginia, where the younger man was shipping out as a newly enlisted member of the U.S. Navy. No witnesses to the accident ever came forward. No hospital or law enforcement official reached out to the family.
Maribel, her mother and her siblings learned of the tragedy from the junkyard owner who found her father's cellphone in the wrecked automobile. Maribel doesn't know why nobody contacted the address on her father's driver's license but she suspects his undocumented status was a factor.
The "She Roars" podcast was launched in October 2018 to celebrate women at Princeton, following the University's successful alumni conference of the same name.
Carnegie Mellon University: Self-Rolling Sensors Take Heart Cell Readings in 3D
PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania, Aug. 24 [TNSscienceresearch] -- Carnegie Mellon University issued the following news:
Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) have developed an organ-on-an-electronic-chip platform, which uses bioelectrical sensors to measure the electrophysiology of the heart cells in three dimensions. These 3D, self-rolling biosensor arrays coil up over heart cell spheroid tissues to form an "organ-on-e-chip," thus enabling the researchers to study how cells communicate with each other in multicellular systems
... Show Full Article
PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania, Aug. 24 [TNSscienceresearch] -- Carnegie Mellon University issued the following news:
Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) have developed an organ-on-an-electronic-chip platform, which uses bioelectrical sensors to measure the electrophysiology of the heart cells in three dimensions. These 3D, self-rolling biosensor arrays coil up over heart cell spheroid tissues to form an "organ-on-e-chip," thus enabling the researchers to study how cells communicate with each other in multicellular systemssuch as the heart.
The organ-on-e-chip approach will help develop and assess the efficacy of drugs for disease treatment -- perhaps even enabling researchers to screen for drugs and toxins directly on a human-like tissue, rather than testing on animal tissue. The platform will be used to shed light on the connection between the heart's electrical signals and disease, such as arrhythmias. The research, published in Science Advances, allows the researchers to investigate processes in cultured cells that currently are not accessible, such as tissue development and cell maturation.
"For decades, electrophysiology was done using cells and cultures on two-dimensional surfaces, such as culture dishes," said Tzahi Cohen-Karni, an associate professor of biomedical engineering and materials science and engineering. "We are trying to circumvent the challenge of reading the heart's electrical patterns in 3D by developing a way to shrink-wrap sensors around heart cells and extracting electrophysiological information from this tissue."
The "organ-on-e-chip" platform starts out as a small, flat rectangle, not unlike a microscale slap bracelet. A slap bracelet starts out as a rigid, ruler-like structure, but when you release the tension it quickly coils up to band around the wrist.
The organ-on-e-chip starts out similarly. The researchers pin an array of sensors made of either metallic electrodes or graphene sensors to the chip's surface, then etch off a bottom layer of germanium, which is known as the "sacrificial layer." Once this sacrificial layer is removed, the biosensor array is released from its hold and rolls up from the surface in a barrel-shaped structure.
The researchers tested the platform on cardiac spheroids, or elongated organoids made of heart cells. These 3D heart spheroids are about the width of two to three human hairs. Coiling the platform over the spheroid allows the researchers to collect electrical signal readings with high precision.
View attached photos here: https://www.cmu.edu/news/stories/archives/2019/august/heart-cell-sensors.html
"Essentially, we have created 3D self-rolling biosensor arrays for exploring the electrophysiology of induced pluripotent stem cell derived cardiomyocytes," said Anna Kalmykov, the lead author of the study and a Ph.D. student in biomedical engineering. "This platform could be used to do research into cardiac tissue regeneration and maturation that potentially can be used to treat damaged tissue after a heart attack, for example, or developing new drugs to treat disease."
Through collaboration with the labs of Adam Feinberg and Jimmy Hsia, the researchers were able to design a proof of concept and test them on 3D micro-mold formed cardiomyocyte spheroids.
"Mechanics analysis of the roll-up process enables us to precisely control the shape of the sensors to ensure conforming contact between the sensors and the cardiac tissue," said Hsia, professor and dean of the Graduate College of NTU Singapore and former CMU faculty member. "The technique also automatically adjusts the level of the delicate 'touch' between the sensors and the tissue such that high quality electric signals are measured without changing in the physiological conditions of the tissue due to external pressure."
"The whole idea is to take methods that are traditionally done in planar geometry and do them in three dimensions," Cohen-Karni said. "Our organs are 3D in nature. For many years, electrophysiology was done using just cells cultured on a 2D tissue culture dish. But now, these amazing electrophysiology techniques can be applied to 3D structures."
This work was made possible by support from the National Science Foundation CAREER Award and the Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Program. Other authors on this paper include CMU BME/MSE Professor Adam Feinberg; CMU BME/MSE researchers Jacqueline Bliley, Daniel Shiwarski, Joshua Tashman, Sahil Rastogi, Shivani Shukla, and Elnatan Mataev; NTU's Jimmy Hsia and Changjin Huang; and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's Arif Abdullah.
By Emily Durham
Baylor University: Caregivers of People With Dementia Are Losing Sleep
WACO, Texas, Aug. 24 [TNSmedicalresearch] -- Baylor University issued the following news:
* * *
- Poor sleep can be a minus for caregivers -- and, in turn, for those in their care, Baylor University sleep researchers say
* * *
Caregivers of people with dementia lose between 2.5 to 3.5 hours of sleep weekly due to difficulty falling asleep and maintaining sleep -- a negative for themselves and potentially for those who receive their care, Baylor University sleep researchers say.
But the good news is that simple, low-cost interventions can improve caregivers' sleep and functioning.
The researchers'
... Show Full Article
WACO, Texas, Aug. 24 [TNSmedicalresearch] -- Baylor University issued the following news:
* * *
- Poor sleep can be a minus for caregivers -- and, in turn, for those in their care, Baylor University sleep researchers say
* * *
Caregivers of people with dementia lose between 2.5 to 3.5 hours of sleep weekly due to difficulty falling asleep and maintaining sleep -- a negative for themselves and potentially for those who receive their care, Baylor University sleep researchers say.
But the good news is that simple, low-cost interventions can improve caregivers' sleep and functioning.
The researchers'analysis of 35 studies with data from 3,268 caregivers -- The researchers' analysis of 35 studies with data from 3,268 caregivers -- "Sleep Duration and Sleep Quality in Caregivers of Patients with Dementia" - is published in JAMA Network Open, a publication of the American Medical Association.
Informal caregiving for a person with dementia is akin to adding a part-time but unpaid job to one's life, with family members averaging 21.9 hours of caregiving, according to The Alzheimer's Association estimates.
"Losing 3.5 hours of sleep per week does not seem much, but caregivers often experience accumulation of sleep loss over years," said lead author Chenlu Gao, a doctoral candidate of psychology and neuroscience in Baylor's College of Arts & Sciences. "Losing 3.5 hours of sleep weekly on top of all the stress, grief and sadness can have a really strong impact on caregivers' cognition and mental and physical health. But improving caregivers' sleep quality through low-cost behavioral interventions can significantly improve their functions and quality of life."
Chronic stress is associated with short sleep and poor-quality sleep. And nighttime awakenings by a patient with dementia also can contribute to disturbed sleep in caregivers, researchers said.
"With that extra bit of sleep loss every night, maybe a caregiver now forgets some medication doses or reacts more emotionally than he or she otherwise would," said co-author Michael Scullin, Ph.D., director of Baylor's Sleep Neuroscience and Cognition Laboratory and assistant professor of psychology and neuroscience at Baylor.
"Caregivers are some of the most inspiring and hardest-working people in the world, but sleep loss eventually accumulates to a level that diminishes one's vigilance and multi-tasking."
Notably better sleep was observed in caregivers after simple interventions, such as getting more sunlight in the morning, establishing a regular and relaxing bedtime routine and engaging in moderate physical exercise, he said.
In the United States, 16 million family caregivers give long-term care for dementia patients. Dementia affects some 50 million adults globally and is expected to increase to 131 million by 2050, according to the World Alzheimer Report. The global annual cost is nearing $1 trillion, largely due to patients' loss of independence because of problems with eating, bathing and grooming, incontinence and memory loss.
For the analysis, researchers searched articles in peer-reviewed journals and books addressing caregivers, sleep, dementia and Alzheimer's disease, published through June 2018. Those studies measured sleep quality and quantity by monitoring brain electrical activity, body movements and self-reporting by caregivers.
The difference in time and quality of sleep was significant when compared to non-caregivers in the same age range and with the recommended minimum of sleep: seven hours nightly for adults, researchers said. They also analyzed intervention-related changes in sleep quality, such as daytime exercise, not drinking coffee or tea past late afternoon, not drinking alcohol at night and getting more sunlight in the morning.
Researchers noted that four theories about sleep in dementia caregivers have emerged in studies:
* The controversial "sleep need" view that older adults need less sleep than younger ones. If so, caregivers should report less sleep time but without changes in perceived sleep quality.
* The "empowerment view," which argues that caregiving is a positive, enriching experience, and so sleep quality should be unchanged or even improved.
* The "environmental stressor view," which holds that the caregiving is so stressful and unpredictable that caregivers would be unable to change their routine in such a way to benefit their sleep.
* The "coping" view that health problems may be driven by unhealthy responses to stress, such as increased alcohol use and less exercise, while interventions should be associated with better sleep.
Baylor researchers' analysis found that caregivers slept less and perceived their sleep quality to be worsening. That means that they were not simply adapting - or not "needing" - sleep. Importantly, caregivers could improve their sleep through behavioral changes, as expected by the "coping" view of caregiving.
"Given the long-term, potentially cumulative health consequences of poor-quality sleep, as well as the rising need for dementia caregivers worldwide, clinicians should consider sleep interventions not only for the patient but also for the spouse, child or friend who will be providing care," Gao said.
* This research was supported in part by a grant from the National Institutes of Health.
