Addressing Sleep in Adolescents Post-Concussion ("ASAP Study")

Over 500,000 adolescents sustain mild traumatic brain injuries (aka "concussions") in the US each year. Despite the term "mild," concussion symptoms disrupt all aspects of an adolescent's functioning, from school to friendships to family, and impair quality of life. Although many youth recover quickly, ~1/3 still have protracted postconcussive symptoms (PPCS) a month or later post-injury. PPCS are hard to treat medically, as concussion-induced pathophysiology wanes within 1-3 weeks. Instead, contemporary treatments seek to target modifiable patient behaviors that contribute to PPCS. There is accumulating evidence that poor sleep quality or quantity are under-addressed, potent, treatable contributors to PPCS, particularly for adolescents. Indeed, recent studies suggest that targeted behavioral sleep treatments can improve adolescent sleep and other persistent post-concussive symptoms, but published approaches have required 4-6 treatment sessions delivered months post-injury. Such approaches are costly and onerous for families, fit poorly with integrated care models, and leave youth and their families to suffer months of protracted PPCS burden. In contrast, our team has developed a single-session behavioral sleep intervention for adolescents that is designed to be delivered soon after acute pathophysiology wanes (4-7 weeks post-injury) to head off protracted symptom burden. Preclinical and Phase 1 studies suggest that this approach is feasible, well-accepted, and has the potential to improve both sleep and other PPCS. Our long-term plan is to test the effectiveness of that intervention in an applied setting. To justify and guide that large-scale trial, here we propose a Phase 2 clinical trial to definitively test the efficacy of the intervention in a controlled context. We will randomize 70 adolescents aged 12-18 years who are experiencing PPCS and poor sleep quantity or quality to receive either a 1-session sleep treatment (Tx) or care-as-usual (control) 4-7 weeks post-injury. We will assess sleep, PPCS, and real-world functioning just prior to randomization and then again 1 week and 1 month later. Our primary aim is to determine the short-term efficacy of the Tx in improving both sleep and PPCS. Secondarily, we will assess the sustained efficacy of the Tx and its impact on daily functioning. We will also explore potential effect modifiers (e.g., demographics, injury-related factors). To ensure successful completion of this study, we have assembled a team of experts in pediatric brain injury and PPCS, adolescent sleep research, behavioral sleep medicine, and biostatistics with a proven record of successful collaboration, including on similar studies and our Phase 1 trial. The current study represents an important next step in our research program, definitively testing efficacy in a Phase 2 trial prior to embarking on a larger (Phase 3) applied effectiveness study. If, as we propose, our brief intervention both improves sleep and reduces other PPCS, this could lead to a powerful new tool to accelerate the recovery and alleviate burden for hundreds of thousands of adolescents every year.