Sleep is important for our health. That’s why researchers Olaf Verschuren and Jeroen Dudink have joined forces to give sleep the role it deserves within healthcare, education, and research.

Who are you and what is your connection to sleep?

Olaf: I’m Olaf Verschuren, a researcher at the Knowledge Center for Rehabilitation Medicine Utrecht (KCRU). I have a background as a pediatric physical therapist with a focus on exercise capacity in children with cerebral palsy. I work with a vulnerable group of children seen within pediatric rehabilitation, where sleep is an activity that must not be forgotten.

Jeroen: I am Jeroen Dudink, a pediatrician, neonatologist, and sleep researcher at the Wilhelmina Children’s Hospital (WKZ). For several years, I have been researching the role that sleep plays in early (brain) development.

Why are you the golden duo when it comes to sleep?

Jeroen: Olaf and I complement each other very well. I work in the WKZ with vulnerable children who are in the neonatology department. When these children leave the hospital, they need to develop at home during the first few vulnerable years. That’s when Olaf and his colleagues often come into the picture.

Olaf: In pediatric rehabilitation, we see children with physical disabilities who have been sleeping poorly for years, even into puberty. This affects not only themselves but also the entire family. We also pay attention to the sleep of parents. If we can improve a child’s sleep, parents often sleep better too, and it has a positive influence on the entire family system.

Jeroen: We are both driven by the ambition to give sleep the role it deserves. We conduct research, but also give lessons about sleep and organize activities to make people realize the importance of sleep.

Why is sleep so important?

Olaf: Sleep is important for recovery, the immune system, memory, growth, and brain development. You need it every day anew to process and recover from everything you’ve learned and experienced during the day, so you can be fit for the next day. It takes up 1/3 of every day, and even more for young children.

Jeroen: Growth, recovery, and development are 24-hour processes. Yet, we often only focus on the period when children are awake. But a significant part of those processes takes place during sleep.

Olaf: From my background in exercise physiology, I long thought that physical activity was the most important thing for our health. But in the last few years, my opinion has changed: I think sleep is the basis for everything that follows.

Jeroen: Yet, generally, people know little about sleep: why we sleep and how you can improve sleep.

What kind of sleep research do you do?

Jeroen: My focus is mainly on research into sleep in vulnerable babies: both prematurely born babies and babies who are born on time but are vulnerable for another reason (e.g., due to oxygen deficiency around birth). I investigate the impact of this on their sleep and how sleep plays a role in recovery.

Olaf: I study 24-hour activities, such as movement, sleep, and sitting. We do this, among other things, with the help of activity monitoring. We also look, for example, at the relationship between nighttime sleep and sensory processing during the day in children with cerebral palsy. With our research, we try to find out which groups sleep well and which do not. Then we look for solutions.

Jeroen: So, we don’t focus so much on (rare) sleep disorders, but more on suboptimal sleep that can be improved through behavioral rules, attention, monitoring, and knowledge. In the hospital, we also try to take sleep into account more and more. Technological developments play a big role in this. We would like to have a sleep-friendly children’s hospital in the future.

What kind of technological developments are we talking about?

Olaf: For example, we use sleep monitoring in our research. We use a ‘smart mattress’, a strip with sensitive sensors that lies under the mattress, which records movements, breathing, and the heartbeat of a child. This gives a good indication of the number of hours of sleep and an impression of the sleep quality, without anyone sleeping worse directly because of it.

Jeroen: The research I do is mainly focused on babies. It can be quite difficult and burdensome to find out whether a baby is sleeping or not with all kinds of instruments and stickers. We are now looking at various new methods, such as smart mattresses, radar techniques, and video analyses. Especially the video analysis is now widely used, where we try to determine when and in which phase a baby sleeps through smart analyses. This allows us to then align the moments of care so that a baby is disturbed as little as possible during sleep. We also want to conduct further research on whether it is beneficial for the brain development of a vulnerable baby to take their sleep needs into account. We are also investigating whether, for example, sound or light therapy can promote deeper sleep.

So, ultimately, is the goal to optimize sleep?

Jeroen: Yes, we aim to align care with sleep and explore the possibilities of making babies sleep deeper. This shows how care, education, and research are closely connected. We need input from both parents and healthcare professionals so we know what to research. Then we give back that information and strive to improve care.

Olaf: In our research, evening rituals (such as screen use) before going to sleep are also aspects we investigate. Adolescents, especially teenagers, in the rehabilitation center who are admitted for a long time, are often night owls. Therefore, we also try to start therapy and the rest of the program later in the day, so it’s not a problem if they fall asleep late. This requires a change in mindset and behavior of all involved: both doctors and patients.

Jeroen: We also notice that our research on the department brings more attention to sleep in general. Often, people know from their own experience the importance of sleep. But with suboptimal sleep, you can function just fine for a lifetime, without really realizing how much better you would be with optimal sleep.