A new study out of the University of California, San Francisco, and the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Healthcare System investigated the increased risk of sleep disorders following traumatic brain injury.
In this study, the researchers performed a cohort study of all patients diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury in the Veterans Health Administration system from 2001 to 2015. These patients were aged-matched with veterans who had not sustained a traumatic brain injury. Any veteran who had a prevalent sleep disorder at the baseline was excluded from the study. The disorders were defined as any inpatient or outpatient diagnosis of sleep apnea, hypersomnia, insomnia, or sleep-related mood disorders. The researcher’s analysis was restricted to those for at least one year.