# A Novel Couples- Based Sleep Health Intervention For Older Adults With Obstructive Sleep Apnea: Implications for Alzheimer's Disease Risk And Healthy Aging

> **NIH NIH R21** · UTAH STATE HIGHER EDUCATION SYSTEM--UNIVERSITY OF UTAH · 2020 · $469,375

## Abstract

Abstract
Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a serious health condition that affects as many as 30-50% of older adults.
OSA is associated with double the risk of cardiovascular disease and depression and as much as five times
the risk for Alzheimer’s disease. These effects pose a real threat to healthy aging, not only for the OSA patient
but also the bedpartner, as 61% of adults share a bed with a spouse/ partner. Despite the “shared” nature of
OSA, treatments for OSA have nearly exclusively focused on the patient. Therefore, there is a critical need for
interventions that address the impact of OSA and its treatment on both partners. Moreover, the first-line
treatment for OSA, positive airway pressure (PAP), is highly effective but profoundly inadequate to reduce the
health and societal costs of OSA, as >50% of patients are non-adherent. Couples-based adherence
interventions, such as those used in other chronic health conditions, have been demonstrated to be more
effective in improving patient adherence, and may have additional benefits for the partner and for the health of
the couple. This R21 proposal aims to develop, refine, and test the preliminary efficacy of a novel couples’-
based intervention (We-PAP) compared to a patient-focused information control group (IC). We-PAP is the first
intervention which explicitly incorporates the partner into treatment (e.g. setting shared goals), and targets PAP
adherence and overall sleep health of the couple as a whole. We-PAP is based on a transdiagnostic model
designed to treat the shared components of multiple disorders rather than a single disorder. This treatment
may be particularly important for older adults, patients and partners alike, due to increased risk for insomnia
and other sleep disorders in this population. We hypothesize that addressing the treatment of OSA in the
context of couples’ shared sleep experience will improve patient PAP adherence and the couples’ sleep health.
In turn, we hypothesize that couples randomized to We-PAP will show measurable improvements in critically
important outcomes in the context of aging, including clinically relevant cognitive outcomes, relationship
quality, and QOL. Results of this R21 will be used to inform the design of a subsequent fully powered clinical
trial of this novel intervention. Findings could significantly advance current clinical practice in the treatment of
OSA and this intervention may be useful for improving sleep in other aging populations with multiple sleep
disorders, including patients with or at risk for Alzheimer’s disease and their caregivers.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10128633
- **Project number:** 1R21AG067183-01A1
- **Recipient organization:** UTAH STATE HIGHER EDUCATION SYSTEM--UNIVERSITY OF UTAH
- **Principal Investigator:** Kelly Glazer Baron
- **Activity code:** R21 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $469,375
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2020-09-15 → 2023-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10128633

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10128633, A Novel Couples- Based Sleep Health Intervention For Older Adults With Obstructive Sleep Apnea: Implications for Alzheimer's Disease Risk And Healthy Aging (1R21AG067183-01A1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10128633. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*