[Treatment] CBT-i Coach

[Cressida]

Admin you may wish to make this a sticky if it already isn't posted somewhere else.

My sleep specialist highly recommended that I use this program in conjunction with Apnia treatment, and recommends to all his patients if they cant fall asleep within 20 minutes of actually going to Bed they follow the guidelines of this program.

It is a teaching tool/ diary and also can help with getting to know what each person needs to do to tailor their individual sleep routines.

It is available on itunes and Google play store and is free.

BRIEF SUMMARY
Current Knowledge/Study Rationale: Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) is an effective treatment for chronic insomnia, but patient adherence issues (e.g., dropout, homework non-compliance) can limit its benefits. A smartphone app could help address these issues by making CBT-I procedures more convenient for patients to complete and easier for clinicians to deliver.
Study Impact: CBT-I Coach is a free, publicly available patient-facing smartphone app intended to augment clinician-delivered CBT-I by facilitating the delivery of major CBT-I treatment components, including sleep educational materials, daily sleep diary completion, stimulus control guidelines, sleep restriction procedures, and anxiety management and cognitive therapy tools. Surveys of CBT-I clinicians in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs suggest that CBT-I Coach is favorably received in terms of its potential to improve practice and address common adherence issues and that it is being widely used by CBT-I patients.

[Walla Walla]

Cressida, Admin is pretty restrictive of what gets posted as a sticky. They want to limit it to just a few most important items. A good place to put your info besides here would be in the product review section. You could explain the pro's and con's of the program and how it helps. I for one would like to read about it.

[Cressida]

Can you move the post to that section please and then I will post updates, save doubling up?

I dont have access to do it.

[OpalRose]

Cressida,
Once you have used this product for awhile, you are welcome to post a review.

Go to the Product Review Forums  and post your review under Other Product Reviews.
Be sure to read the ‘Important Threads’ at the top of the page.

http://www.apneaboard.com/forums/Forum-O...ct-Reviews

[sheepless]

Cressida, thanks for bringing this to our attention.

I tried the cbt-i coach app for a little over a week now. I guess it's a good way to manually track bedtime, awake time, wake time and nap time, but that info is already in sleepyhead and resscan. in fact, transferring the info from sleepyhead to the app is pretty much all I do with it. the only thing the app has done so far is force me to calculate and record the duration of gaps in my flow rate (corresponding to awake times) and then it shows me a sleep efficiency score. I thought after a week of data it would give me a report including a 'sleep prescription' that I thought would be personalized advice based on the info I input. it has not. it will not allow me to enter 'prescribed' or desired targets for bedtime, wake time and efficiency; when I try it tells me my sleep efficiency is low and to make an appointment to see a provider. the reference information is pretty simplistic for cpap users and the app doesn't provide personalized advice based on the data entered. not saying it doesn't serve a useful purpose for some people, just that it's redundant for sleepyhead users and hasn't given me any advice beyond the basic generalities in a few short articles (e.g., bed for sleep and intimacy only, have routine bed and wake times, keep room dark, avoid coffee, avoid or address worry, stress, etc.). of course it might be more useful in conjunction with a human cbt-i coach but I haven't hired one so I can't comment on that.

edit: it's possible the app will allow a sleep prescription update only on sundays. I set the app's alarm (preset to sunday; can change time of day only) to remind me to do so on sunday. we'll see if that works.

[sheepless]

update: I've entered my sleep data for about 2.5 weeks, including 3 sundays. the app wants the user to update their 'sleep prescription' on sundays, reminds me to do so, but won't let me past a screen that says my efficiency is low and I should make an appointment with somebody. I'm not sure what good a sleep prescription is if it only works when the user already has efficient sleep. and personally, I'm not likely to pay someone to tell me what I already know, and is otherwise readily available, about sleep hygiene.

I don't want to discourage others from trying the app or bringing new tools to the attention of apnea board members. I'm sure this app serves a useful purpose for some (particularly people brand new to sleep problems like insomnia); I'm just not feeling it.