Providing children with cerebral palsy the best bedroom environment for sleep

Sleep is an active process, essential for children’s development. Between 23-46% of children with cerebral palsy (CP) have sleep problems. Sleep problems go undiagnosed and undertreated and interventions are most often pharmacological. There is a compelling need for effective non-pharmacological intervention to address sleep problems. The goal of this single case-series study was to determine if providing parents with a sleep education and problem solving psychoeducational manual will increase both parents’ knowledge and their application of strategies to reduce sleep negative features in the child’s bedroom based on this knowledge. Method: Recruitment of child/parent participants was through community partners. Data were collected with standardized measures, tools developed in-house for this study, and children’s sleep actigraphy at baseline, post-intervention and 6-week follow-up. The Children’s Best Bedroom for Sleep (CBBES) psychoeducational manual, developed for this project, was the tested intervention. Findings: For the six child/parent pairs who participated, sleep environment knowledge improved slightly, as did parents’ ability to assess their child’s bedroom and act to correct problems. Actigraphy data was insufficient for analysis. Conclusions: Results suggest that the CBBES manual can be an effective tool to improve parent knowledge and application of this new knowledge to improve their child’s sleep environment.