Sleep problems in cancer patients

 Inability to sleep in cancer patients can be because of  of chemotherapy, anti-nausea drugs or steroid drugs,  inadequately treated pain or anxiety and stress and a workup for insominia is resonable when a cancer patient cannot sleep.  Cognitive-behavioral therapy appears to be effective for the treatment of insomnia in the general population and also has been upgraded to “likely to be effective” in the Oncology Nursing Society Putting Evidence Into Practice weight of evidence category. It would be expected that many techniques that work in general would also be useful for cancer patients. The most frequently used strategies are stimulus control, sleep restriction, relaxation therapies, paradoxical intention, sleep hygiene, and cognitive restructuring.  Sleep medications can also be a useful adjunct but should not become the only way with which insomnia is dealt. 

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