Hospital Noise Alarms Patients

It’s no secret that a good night’s sleep is essential to your well-being. But hospitals that should be designed to help people heal are so noisy at night they may be hindering their patients’ health.Research at Harvard and the Cambridge Health Alliance suggests that hospitals have a serious problem when their noisy environments lead to sleep deprivation in patients.

In a sleep lab, the New England researchers analyzed the effects that hospital noise produces on the sleeping (or trying to sleep) brain. The study showed that the electronic noises of medical machines like heart monitors were extremely disruptive even when these sounds were not very loud.

“Beyond disturbing sleep itself, we showed that noise-induced sleep disruptions, even subtle ones, beneath conscious awareness, lead to temporary elevations in heart rate,” says researcher Jeffrey Ellenbogen, M.D., director of sleep medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital. “While these effects were modest in size, our concern is that repeated disruptions, as might occur in a hospital room, may jeopardize the health of our most vulnerable populations.