July 19, 2024

Attending My First SLEEP Meeting: My Experience at SLEEP 2024

Yash Malhotra, RLS Foundation 2024 Intern and Founder of Kids Talk Sleep

Yash Malhotra is an RLS Foundation intern for the summer of 2024. He is also one of the founders of Kids Talk Sleep, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit whose mission is to increase awareness about the benefits of sleep for children and to distribute sleep-related items to children facing adversity in St. Louis. The Foundation is excited to have Yash on board!

My first experience at the national SLEEP meeting was memorable. The SLEEP meeting, or the Associated Professional Sleep Societies annual meeting, is a conference that focuses on sleep medicine, sleep health, and sleep and circadian research. The meeting is a joint venture between the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the Sleep Research Society. It is a gathering of thousands of people from around the world, including sleep medicine physicians, researchers, and other health care professionals. I met with prominent sleep doctors and researchers, attended the plenary sessions, symposiums and discussion groups, visited with researchers at their research poster presentations, and explored the enormous exhibit hall that showcased the latest clinical and consumer technology.

SLEEP included postgraduate courses, networking/social events, lectures, debates, presentations, discussion groups, symposiums, workshops, and more. Researchers of all different experience levels, including students, were able to share their research work through posters and oral presentations. Much of the research presented was brand new, groundbreaking data that has not yet been published, and was fascinating to learn about.

RLS presentations at the SLEEP meeting:

While I was unable to attend all of these myself, there were a variety of sessions focusing on Restless Legs Syndrome including:

● Update and Review on RLS During Pregnancy, RLS in Childhood, RLS in Dementia, and Iron Supplementation in RLS (Postgraduate Course)

● Diagnosis and Management of RLS During Pregnancy and Lactation

● Review and Update on the Diagnosis and Management of RLS in Children

● Innovations in RLS Diagnosis and Management in Older Adults with Dementia

● National RLS Opioid Registry: Four-Year Dose Stability, Efficacy, and Tolerability

● RLS Treatment Reduces Nighttime Agitation and Increases Sleep Duration in Older Adults with Alzheimer’s Disease

One of the most enlightening sessions was the “Future of Families Cohort.” It included newly unpublished data exploring disparities in sleep from adolescence to young adulthood. This study provided insights into how socioeconomic factors influence sleep patterns over time. I learned that black and biracial young adults got less sleep than their white counterparts which was also associated with household income. Thus, there are clear racial disparities in sleep and further research is needed to promote sleep equity. I also learned that underprivileged and underserved adolescents deal with environmental factors such as urban noise and proximity to pollutants. These factors are more prevalent in disadvantaged neighborhoods, further exacerbating sleep disparities.

Another session that I found fascinating was “Helping Elite Athletes Optimize Sleep for Peak Performance.” This session discussed strategies such as sleep banking (accumulating extra sleep a couple of nights before the sports events) which can help athletes maintain peak performance, even if pre-event jitters disrupt their sleep the night before their competition. The sleep experts also discussed the importance of naps for recovery and performance enhancement. I was especially interested in attending this session because my brother, Sanjay, and I have read a lot about the importance of sleep in student athletes. As a founder of Kids Talk Sleep, we have shared this knowledge on our website (www.kidstalksleep.org) and with 4th and 5th grade elementary school students.

Overall, my first experience at the SLEEP Meeting was amazing! Over the course of just four days, I learned so much and met so many new people. I plan on coming back next year as there is so much more to explore. I highly recommend any researchers or students interested in sleep to attend at least once.