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Three nights leg thermal therapy could improve sleep quality in patients with chronic heart failure

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Abstract

Sleep quality is often impaired in patients with chronic heart failure (HF), which may worsen their quality of life and even prognosis. Leg thermal therapy (LTT), topical leg warming, has been shown to improve endothelial function, oxidative stress, and cardiac function in patients with HF. However, its short-term influence to sleep quality has not been evaluated in HF patients. Eighteen of 23 patients with stable HF received LTT (15 min of warming at 45 °C and 30 min of insulation) at bedtime for 3 consecutive nights and 5 patients served as control. Subjective sleep quality was evaluated by St. Mary’s Hospital Sleep Questionnaire, Oguri–Shirakawa–Azumi Sleep Inventory, and Epworth sleepiness scale, and also objectively evaluated by polysomnography. LTT significantly improved subjective sleep quality indicated by depth of sleep (p < 0.01), sleep duration (p < 0.05), number of awaking (p < 0.01), nap duration (p < 0.01), sleep quality (p < 0.05), and sleep satisfaction (p < 0.05). It was also objectively affirmed by a slight but significant decrease of sleep stage N1 (p < 0.01), and increase in sleep stage N2 (p < 0.05). No significant changes occurred in the controls. Hence, the short-term LTT could improve subjective and objective sleep quality in patients with HF. LTT can be a complimentary therapy to improve sleep quality in these patients.

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Acknowledgements

We sincerely thank Yumiko Kubota, RPSGT for her technical help. This research was supported by a Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research (#23660038 to A. Chishaki) and a Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists Start-up (#15H06494 to H. Sawatari) from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Health Sciences, Kyushu University Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Maidashi 3-1-1, Higashiku, Fukuoka, Japan

    Hiroyuki Sawatari, Nobuko Hashiguchi, Chie Magota & Akiko Chishaki

  2. Sleep Apnea Center, Kyushu University Hospital, Fukuoka, Japan

    Mari K. Nishizaka & Shin-ichi Ando

  3. Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, Kyushu University Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Fukuoka, Japan

    Mari K. Nishizaka, Shujiro Inoue, Takafumi Sakamoto, Anita Rahmawati & Hiroyuki Tsutsui

  4. School of Nursing, Fukuoka Prefectural University, Fukuoka, Japan

    Mami Miyazono

  5. Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, Munakata Suikoukai General Hospital, Fukuoka, Japan

    Masao Takemoto

  6. Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, Hokkaido University Graduate School of Medicine, Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan

    Daisuke Goto, Tomoo Furumoto & Shintaro Kinugawa

  7. Department of Healthcare Management, College of Healthcare Management, Fukuoka, Japan

    Hiroaki Chishaki

  8. Ube Frontier University, Ube, Yamaguchi, Japan

    Tomoko Ohkusa

Authors
  1. Hiroyuki Sawatari
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  2. Mari K. Nishizaka
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  13. Hiroaki Chishaki
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  14. Tomoko Ohkusa
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  15. Chie Magota
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  16. Hiroyuki Tsutsui
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  17. Akiko Chishaki
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Akiko Chishaki.

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None of the authors has any competing interests to disclose with respect to this study.

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Sawatari, H., Nishizaka, M.K., Miyazono, M. et al. Three nights leg thermal therapy could improve sleep quality in patients with chronic heart failure. Heart Vessels 33, 155–162 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00380-017-1047-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00380-017-1047-7

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