Enhancing Sleep Quality for Nursing Home Residents With Dementia: Pragmatic Trial of an Evidence-Based Frontline Huddling Program

Disturbed sleep places older adults at higher risk for frailty, morbidity, and even mortality. Yet nursing home (NH) routines frequently disturb residents' sleep through use of noise and light or efforts, for example, to reduce incontinence. NH residents with Alzheimer's disease or related dementias-almost two-thirds of long-stay NH residents-are likely to be particularly affected by sleep disturbance. This study tackles these important issues and substantially moves forward goals of the National Plan to Address Alzheimer's Disease 2018 Update by proposing to implement an evidence-based intervention to improve sleep: a NH frontline staff huddling program known as LOCK. The LOCK program is derived from evidence supporting strengths-based learning, systematic observation, relationship-based teamwork, and efficiency.

This is an incomplete stepped-wedge randomized controlled trial to test the impact and sustainability of the LOCK sleep program. In 24 community nursing homes (NHs)-eight from each of 3 national NH corporations-our multi-disciplinary team will examine these aims: (1) Implement the LOCK-based sleep program for residents with ADRD using the train-the-trainer model. (2) Estimate impact of the LOCK sleep program on sleep (primary outcome) and on psychotropic medication use, pain and analgesic medication use, and activities of daily living decline (secondary outcomes). (3) Examine factors, using mixed methods, associated with variation in the program's implementation and its sustainability.