Chris Coffey

Can 'light therapy' help people w/ Parkinson’s sleep better? The ENLITE-PD randomized study put this idea to the test. Aleksandar Videnovic and colleagues did a great job on this multi-center effort. Spoiler alert: bright white light therapy was not effective. Key Points: - Bright white light therapy was safe, well tolerated and had good adherence across groups. - Twice-daily light therapy showed some improvements in sleep and fatigue, however it did not meet criteria to advance to a phase 3 trial. - Once weekly bright light was non-inferior to dim red light and may serve as a better control condition for future studies. My take: I think it is critically important to put non-pharmacological therapies to the test, and I congratulate the authors for conducting this study. Right now, it looks light the ‘juice may not be worth the squeeze’ for the current versions of light therapy for Parkinson’s. Here are 5 points that resonated w/ me about this article: 1- Sleep issues frequently affect people living w/ Parkinson’s and remain a major unmet need. 2- Light therapy is safe and may help improve fatigue and aspects of sleep, however the benefits were modest in this trial. 3- Not all light therapies are the same and more research is needed to determine frequency, timing and type of light that work best. 4- This study highlights the importance of rigorous trials to sort out real benefits from placebo and also from the effects of daily rhythm. 5- Future light therapy studies will need longer durations, diverse populations and objective measures to truly understand if there is a potential we are missing. movementdisorders.onlinelibr… @FixelInstitute @ParkinsonDotOrg @movedisorder @SfNtweets