Lavender essential oil improves sleep in residents of a memory care assisted living facility

Abstract

People with dementia often have problems with sleep including difficulties falling and staying asleep. Aromatherapy is a form of complementary medicine that uses fragrant oils extracted and distilled from plant material, known as essential oils, for altering mood or behavioral health. There is limited evidence that the use of lavender oil can improve sleep and behavioral symptoms in people with memory loss. The purpose of this study was to determine if lavender can be an effective tool to manage sleep disruption in patients residing in a memory care assisted living facility. Twenty-two residents from memory care units in the Deer Crest assisted living facility (Red Wing, MN) were enrolled in this blinded, randomized-controlled cross-over trial of lavender oil versus placebo oil. Participants were monitored with actigraphs for 3 weeks and acclimated to study procedures in the first week. Participants were randomized to receive either lavender or placebo (almond) oil in week 2 and switched to the other oil during week 3. While dressing for participant's bedtime, resident assistants applied lotion (for acclimation week) or essential oil to the participant's neck, upper back, and spine over a period of one minute. A diffuser containing the corresponding treatment was also turned on for 20 minutes. Total minutes of sleep were calculated after sleep periods were manually defined using data from sleep logs. A linear-mixed effects model was conducted on data from four, 24 hr weekday epochs adjusting for patient-level clustering, patient-specific time trend, sequence of oil application, and overall time trend across all subjects. The average participant was 85.7 yr, 29% male, with a Montreal Cognitive Assessment score of 7.0. As expected, there was considerable variation in sleeping patterns across subjects. The total minutes of sleep per night with placebo oil was 408 minutes (sd=86). This significantly increased (p=.01) by 41 minutes (95% CI: 44.7, 38.35) during the week they received lavender. There was not a significant effect of time or the order in which oils were applied. The use of lavender shows promise as a non-pharmacologic alternative for management of sleep disturbance in people with memory loss.