According to a study in the journal Pain, sleep therapy for patients with knee osteoarthritis and insomnia may reduce joint pain, Reuters reports.
More than 70% of people with knee osteoarthritis also suffer from sleep disturbances, researchers noted.
For the current study, researchers randomly assigned 100 people with both insomnia and knee osteoarthritis to receive eight sessions of either cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I), designed to shift thinking about sleep and bad habits that contribute to insomnia, or behavior desensitization therapy designed to diminish emotional and physical responses to arousing thoughts and behaviors related to sleep.”
Regardless of what intervention they received, participants experienced fewer negative feelings about both daytime and nighttime pain by the end of treatment, and this persisted three and six months afterwards.
