Loughborough University Magazine W INI TER 202 141 4 /11 5 the the 12 RESEARCH AND ENTERPRISE 04 Can’t sleep? Log on to… 14 08 Last chance saloon 12 New tech plugs leaking pipes 08 14 20 CONTENTS River invaders THE CAMPUS VIEW 18 Engineering a new era 20 To subscribe free to The View or The View is published by the Printed by request extra copies call Public Relations Offi ce, McLays Campus round-up +44 (0)1509 222224 Loughborough University, This product is produced using 04 or email Leicestershire, LE11 3TU [email protected] vegetable based inks, using low VOC T: +44 (0)1509 222224 (Volatile Organic Compounds) printing For more information about E: [email protected] processes on FSC certifi ed paper and 18 THE Loughborough University visit www.lboro.ac.uk/publicrelations board, assuring that materials are www.lboro.ac.uk sourced from properly managed forests SPORTS Design: Design and Print Services, and that materials have a full chain An electronic version of Loughborough University of custody from source to end user. 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We’ve all been there, tossing and turning in bed, There is, however, an alternative. It’s a ‘talking constantly looking at the clock, cursing our inability to therapy’ called Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for get to sleep and feeling like death in the morning. Insomnia (CBT-I). Multiply that feeling several fold and you may get Effective programmes of CBT-I have been developed some idea how someone with chronic insomnia feels. by Professor Kevin Morgan, Director of the Clinical Sleep It is a distressing condition that affects 10%of the Research Unit (CSRU) at Loughborough University UK population. That’s a staggering 6.4 million people, School of Sport and Exercise Sciences, in collaboration whose lives – social and work – and relationships with the Nottinghamshire Healthcare Trust (NHT) over can be affected so badly there is an increased risk the last 10 years. of depression. These programmes, delivered by NHS therapists So what do we do? We take sleeping tablets. or available as ‘self-help’ packages, work on up to Doctors hand out 12 prescriptions a year. We swallow 80% of treated patients. But, getting the between 120 and 168 million tablets annually. The treatment programmes to the patients has proved a cost? £25m. major challenge. But, sleeping tablets are not a cure, merely a quick Why? Because the demand for treatment easily fi x. Worse still, they can lead to more problems – outstrips the supply of NHS therapists. So why not addiction, withdrawal problems and daytime drowsiness. offer the self-help version to patients on the web? This, Think of that the next time you are driving fi rst thing in remember, is the online era, where social network sites the morning. like Facebook are de rigeur. « Loughborough University Magazine Loughborough University Magazine 06 the SLEEPFUL 12 SUPPORTED MY THERAPY AND Sleepful EXPLAINED WHAT I million Helpful Sleeping.Sleeping. NEEDED TO DO. PRESCRIPTIONS PER YEAR CHRONIC INSOMNIA EFFECTS 10% OF THE UK Kevin Morgan Which is why Professor Morgan got together with said ‘this is good, give it to us.’” 10% self-help resources, which is quite different from telling Professor Shaun Lawson, a social computing expert from So were people involved in a trial. “These were savvy someone to go away, read a booklet and listen to a CD.” WHAT IS CBT-I the University of Lincoln, and others+, and came up with young people with sleep problems,” he said. While Professor Morgan is not anti-sleeping tablets he Cognitive behavioural Therapy for Insomnia Sleepful. Professor Morgan and his partners are now working on insists they are not a long term answer to insomnia. (CBT-I) is based on evidence that falling asleep Sleepful is the result of a £463,840 three year getting Sleepful into GP practices for the benefi t of the “Insomnia doesn’t just affect your sleep, it affects your is strongly infl uenced by two psychological project funded by the Engineering and Physical nation’s insomniacs. life,” he said. “CBT-I and Sleepful offer treatments which processes – learning and thinking. Last year, Loughborough’s CSRU and the NHT started are lastingly effective. Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) called ENACT: Good sleepers learn to feel sleepier as a result IT SHOWS THEM a one year programme aimed at designing an optimal “Talk to senior sleep physicians and they want their Exploiting social Networks to Augment cognitive of going to bed, and fi nd little diffi culty in ‘care pathway’ for NHS patients with insomnia. insomnia patients to get CBT-I. behavioural therapy. THAT SOMETHING THEY DO ‘winding down’ their thoughts before going It is a referral only online therapeutic social network The aim will be to position treatments like WE SWALLOW BETWEEN “CBT-I is recommended by the NHS as the fi rst-line to sleep. People with insomnia, on the other platform for the delivery of self-help CBT-I to NHS patients. CAN HAVE AN EFFECT ON THEIR Sleepful at an ideal point in the patient’s excursion treatment for insomnia – but it remains inaccessible for hand, learn to feel more alert in bed, and often The website contains a structured eight-step through NHS care. most patients. describe their minds as ‘racing’. treatment programme of CBT for insomnia, a mobile SLEEP AND IT MAKES THEM Professor Morgan said: “We developed this “Sleeping tablets are effective, they do what is written CBT-I is a ‘talking therapy’ which offers a range phone ‘app’ which records sleep patterns, a section with an NHS Trust, Notts Healthcare, so they must on the tin. For a maximum of 21 days! FEEL VERY POWERFUL. of effective strategies to increase sleepiness in on frequently asked questions (FAQs) and, crucially, an have fi rst pick. “But show me the insomnia that lasts for only 21 days. “We have a product we know works. We know the 128 Insomnia is a chronic problem. Sleeping tablets are a bed, control pre-sleep thoughts and worries, online social network where people with insomnia can deal practically with periods of night-time therapy works. What we want to do now is get it short term fi x.” talk to fellow sufferers. AND wakefulness, and appropriately manage fatigue distributed. We are also going to offer it to a commercial Sleepful, says Professor Morgan, will be hugely The app, which is downloaded to a mobile phone, during the day. software partner.” important to insomniacs. is clever. The phone emits a low register tone every 15 The process of making Sleepful more accessible Treatments involve adjusting sleep habits, minutes. If awake, the patient taps the screen, which tells “On the other hand we have a technology (social should be helped by the presence of IAPT (Improving learning techniques to reduce worries and the computer programme and builds up a graph of that networks) that we know is like fl ypaper. Access to Psychological Therapies), an initiative increase relaxation at night, general education person’s sleeping patterns. 168 “So why don’t we put the two together. That’s what introduced by the last Labour Government. about ‘sleep hygiene’, and self-monitoring using If CBT-I is working the patient’s ‘sleep effi ciency’ – the Sleepful is all about Trained IAPT practitioners are now in primary care, MILLION SLEEPING TABLETS daily sleep diaries. percentage of time in bed spent asleep – will increase. “We thought, ‘let’s see if we can mount an effective and are capable of prescribing Sleepful, and monitoring + That, says Professor Morgan, is a boost in itself. “It’s PER YEAR AT A COST Other members of the Sleepful Development team: Unlike drugs, CBT-I addresses the root causes CBT-I programme on a social network platform’. patients on the self-help programme. Dr Maureen Tomeny incredibly encouraging when you look at your original of insomnia – safely and lastingly. “We knew we had an effective self-help product “We are working to make Sleepful available throughout OF Nottinghamshire Healthcare (NHS) Trust and Loughborough sleep effi ciency of, say, 60% and you see it creep up because we had trialled it. So we took a CBT-I the NHS,” said Professor Morgan. University Clinical Research Unit towards 100. programme and dropped it into a sexy network to see “The Sleepful team feel it’s ready to go. We are Professor Niroshan Siriwardena University of Lincoln Community and Health Research Group Professor Morgan believes Sleepful is the answer whether we could make it work in a way that allows applying for additional NHS funding to support further £ Andrew Garbett University of Newcastle to getting insomniacs to try CBT-I and ditch the people to communicate with other people.