Sleep Center | Research & Innovation | Boston Children's Hospital

Improving Screening for Pediatric Sleepiness - Participants Needed

Description: The diagnosis of pediatric narcolepsy is often not made until 5-10 years after symptoms develop! This delay in diagnosis can lead to difficulties maintaining a social life, safety issues, academic struggles and mood disorders. We have developed a screening survey to help identify children/adolescents with excessive daytime sleepiness. We are looking for patients age 8-18 who have been recently diagnosed with narcolepsy or idiopathic hypersomnia (within a 6 month period) or awaiting diagnostic sleep study testing for these conditions to complete our surveys. Additionally, we are looking for control participants (healthy kids/adolescents age 8-18 with no sleep disorders or medical conditions) to take these surveys.
- What is needed: Complete 5 questionnaires online about typical sleep patterns and daytime sleepiness. This takes about 15 minutes in total.
- As a thank you, each participant will receive a $10 gift card
If you are interested in participating in this study, please email NeuroSleepResearch-dl@childrens.harvard.edu for more information.

Description: Research has shown that sleep disturbances can contribute to both cognitive problems and hypertension. We are studying the effects of sleep fragmentation on cognitive and cardiovascular outcomes in kids/adolescents with narcolepsy and healthy controls. Inclusion Criteria: Currently, we are looking for children ages 8-25 years of age who are diagnosed with narcolepsy type 1 as well as healthy control participants with no sleep or medical disorders.
- What is needed: This study requires 2 sessions of IQ testing (one at home through Skype and one in-person), wearing a wrist watch device for 1 week including on the study night to measure sleep/wake and autonomic activity, completion of questionnaires, an overnight sleep study at Boston Children’s Hospital, memory and emotion tests before and after the sleep study, and blood pressure monitoring before/after the study. Last, a single blood draw is required upon awakening in the morning.
- As a thank you, the participant receives $250.00
If you are interested in participating in this study, please email NeuroSleepResearch-dl@childrens.harvard.edu for more information.