Sleep ICU healthy subjects

Patients admitted to an intensive care unit (ICU) are exposed to several intrinsic and extrinsic sleep disruptive factors, causing disturbed sleep, which may have detrimental effects on patient cognition and behavior. Because so many factors play a role, studying the primary effects of the busy ICU environment is complicated in patients and can therefore best be done in healthy volunteers.

Little is known about the importance of individual intrinsic and extrinsic factors on sleep in the ICU. This study will investigate the role of sound, light, and the inherent experience of the ICU environment on the incidence of arousals, and therefore the continuity of sleep. Focusing on the study of healthy subjects eliminates confounding and immeasurable intrinsic factors present in patients, that may interfere with clear analysis of this relation.

Environmental disturbances during ICU submission may explain observed EEG-arousals

The sleep quantity and quality of the subjects will be measured during 3 nights using polysomnography. Subjects will sleep 1 night at home, 1 night in a closed section of the ICU and 1 night in the active ICU.