Yeonsu Song
University of California-Los Angeles, CA·Medicine & Clinical Research
Poor sleep is more than tiredness. Untreated sleep problems raise the risk of chronic disease, memory decline and early death.
- Fields
Medicine & Clinical Research
Public Health & Epidemiology
Psychology
- Topics
sleep
insomnia
Alzheimer's disease
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through May 2027
What they work on
- Culturally adapt an existing cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBTI) program for older Korean immigrants with limited English, using established cultural adaptation strategies and feedback from community stakeholders and participants.
- Test the feasibility and early effects of the adapted program in a pilot randomized trial of 32 older Korean immigrants, comparing it with general sleep education at a community agency.
- Test whether a five-week dyadic program combining CBTI, light exposure, walking and caregiving problem-solving improves subjective and objective sleep in people with dementia and their caregivers, in a three-arm randomized trial.
- Compare telehealth and in-person delivery of the dyadic program, testing non-inferiority, and explore its effects on dementia behaviors, caregiver burden and depression, and caregivers' inflammatory markers.
More about the research
Two groups face particular gaps in care. Older Asian immigrants often find that standard treatments, built around Western habits, do not fit their lives. People with Alzheimer's disease and the family members caring for them often sleep badly together. Both projects adapt cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBTI), the first-line treatment for chronic sleep problems, to groups that standard programs serve poorly. Both are delivered by trained sleep educators in community settings.
Why it matters
Better sleep could improve health and quality of life for older Korean immigrants and help narrow sleep health gaps among Asian Americans. For people with dementia and their family caregivers, better sleep may help families keep loved ones at home longer and delay nursing-home admission, possibly lowering healthcare costs. Both programs use manuals designed so community staff can deliver them, including by telehealth.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Manka Nkimbeng
University of Minnesota, MN·Public Health & Epidemiology·Early-career
Explore the experiences and care strategies of high-risk New American older adults with dementia and their informal family caregivers.
Patricia Haynes
University of Arizona, AZ·Public Health & Epidemiology
Test whether the CBTi-based firefighter sleep health coaching program reduces sleep disturbance in 400 career firefighters across 20 departments, using a stepped-wedge cluster randomized trial with questionnaire and actigraphy outcomes.
Lee Kehoe
University of Rochester, NY·Medicine & Clinical Research·Early-career
Evaluate whether 8 weekly sessions of Dyadic Life Review therapy, added to usual care, reduce psychological distress in caregivers of older adults with AD/ADRD and stage III–IV cancer, in a 60-dyad randomized trial.
The school
University of California-Los Angeles: 84 labs on PI Pages, $1.9B a year on research, 803 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
A start for your email. Fill in the brackets.