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As many as 30% of patients in primary care practices report difficulty falling asleep or maintaining sleep. Brief behavioral therapies are effective for alleviating sleep problems but are difficult to standardize and disseminate, especially in patients with medical comorbidities.
To test the effect of behavioral intervention in this population, researchers randomized 82 older adults (mostly white women; mean age, 72; mean comorbidities, 6) to receive brief behavioral therapy or basic sleep information (control). The intervention focused on (1) reducing amount of time in bed, (2) getting up at the same time every day, (3) going to bed only when sleepy, and (4) staying in bed only when asleep. The therapy group received 2 hours of counseling t…