The objective of this five year academic award is to establish Dr. McCurry as an independent researcher who can integrate expertise in a range of behavioral and somatic interventions, and employ physiological measures to assess the impact of these interventions, in order to improve the sleep, psychosocial functioning, and quality of life of older adults. This award will build on Dr. McCurry's existing skills and training in psychological treatment outcome research, and will provide her with an opportunity to expand her knowledge into the field of sleep and treatment of nighttime behavioral disturbances in patients with dementia. Dr. McCurry completed a two year post- doctoral research fellowship in geriatric psychology. She has authored or co-authored 19 articles and 3 book chapters since that fellowship that are either published or in press.
The aim of the present award is to increase her knowledge of: 1) the interaction between age, psychiatric conditions, medical comorbidy, and sleep quality; 2) objective sleep assessment and monitoring techniques that may also generalize to monitoring of other dementia-related behavior problems; and 3) somatic therapies (e.g., light exposure and exercise) that may be appropriate for the treatment of insomnia as well as other mental disorders in older adults. Research has suggested that nighttime behavioral disturbances in persons with Alzheimer's disease (AD) are a common source of patient institutionalization and caregiver psychological and physical burden. This career development award will allow Dr. McCurry to evaluate the short- and long-term feasibility and efficacy of an 8-week combination behavioral and somatic treatment for improving sleep in persons diagnosed with AD. It will enable her to identify patient and caregiver characteristics associated with treatment outcome, such as dementia severity, level of behavioral disturbance, presence of depression or comorbid disease, cultural background, and age. This study will build upon Dr. McCurry's existing major collaborations with faculty at University of Washington in the areas of behavior management (Dr. Linda Teri) and age-related change in sleep (Drs. Michael Vitiello and Pat Prinz). In addition, Dr. McCurry will develop new collaborative relationships with Drs. Sonia Ancoli-Israel and Charles Reynolds to develop an expertise in sleep assessment, 24-hour activity and light monitoring, and the role of comorbid physical, psychiatric, and environmental factors in the development of sleep problems in the elderly. This training mechanism will assist Dr. McCurry in making the transition to an independent investigator at the University of Washington, as well as a teacher and clinician in geriatric psychology.
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