Sleep parameters improvement in PTSD soldiers after symptoms remission

Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) is a psychotherapy for the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It is still unclear whether symptoms remission through EMDR therapy is associated with a beneficial effect on one of the PTSD symptoms, sleep disturbance. Our objective...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Scientific reports 2021-04, Vol.11 (1), p.8873-8873, Article 8873
Main Authors: Rousseau, P. F., Vallat, R., Coste, O., Cadis, H., Nicolas, F., Trousselard, M., Ruby, P., Khalfa, S.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
631/378/1385/1817
631/378/1385/2641
631/378/1385/519
631/378/1831
692/699/476
Cognitive science
Humanities and Social Sciences
Life Sciences
multidisciplinary
Post traumatic stress disorder
Psychotherapy
Remission
Remission (Medicine)
Santé publique et épidémiologie
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
Sleep
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Summary:Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) is a psychotherapy for the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It is still unclear whether symptoms remission through EMDR therapy is associated with a beneficial effect on one of the PTSD symptoms, sleep disturbance. Our objective was therefore to study sleep parameters before and after symptom remission in soldiers with PTSD. The control group consisted of 20 healthy active duty military men who slept in a sleep lab with standard polysomnography (PSG) on two sessions separated by one month. The patient group consisted of 17 active duty military with PTSD who underwent EMDR therapy. PSG-recorded sleep was assessed 1 week before the EMDR therapy began and 1 week after PTSD remission. We found that the increased REMs density after remission was positively correlated with a greater decrease of symptoms. Also, the number of EMDR sessions required to reach remission was correlated with intra-sleep awakenings before treatment. These results confirm the improvement of some sleep parameters in PTSD after symptoms remission in a soldier's population and provide a possible predictor of treatment success. Further experiments will be required to establish whether this effect is specific to the EMDR therapy.
ISSN:2045-2322
2045-2322
DOI:10.1038/s41598-021-88337-x