Sweet dreams: an evidence-based approach to effective sleep hygiene maintenance for people with an intellectual disability.

Sleep is an essential activity of daily living that is often overlooked in approaches to caring for people with intellectual disabilities (IDs). Poor sleep, insomnia or disrupted sleep can have wide-ranging effects on the health and well-being of people with ID resulting in many adverse consequences. This article outlines the main challenges that people with ID may have initiating and sustaining sleep, explains the nature, prevalence and causes of sleeping problems they experience and discusses a variety of assessments of sleeping issues. It also examines sleep maintenance, management and sleep hygiene approaches to support this cohort using a person-centred nursing care plan and concludes with some suggestions for sleep maintenance and hygiene. Good sleep hygiene should form a central element of caring for people with ID and this article offers suggestions about care planning approaches to enable good quality sleep experiences for people with ID. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]