ThePilot.com reports that FirstHealth Clinical Trials is enrolling local cancer survivors in a clinical trial designed to determine the effectiveness of non-medication therapies for insomnia.

As part of a national study approved by the Research Subjects Review Board (RSRB) at the University of Rochester (New York), FirstHealth Clinical Trials is now enrolling local cancer survivors in a clinical trial designed to determine the effectiveness of three non-medication therapies in the treatment of cancer-related insomnia. Selected participants will be randomly assigned to one of three different study “arms”: yoga, survivorship health education and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (counseling).

About 630 cancer patients from across the U.S. will take part in the study with a maximum of 30 (10 in each arm) coming from FirstHealth. One group will participate in yoga (Gentle Hatha and Restorative) twice a week for four weeks, and the second will attend health education sessions two times a week for four weeks. The third group will attend a counseling session once a week for eight weeks.

According to Lori Despain, RN, it will take about nine months to complete all of the assessments involved in the study.

“This will be a totally randomized trial,” she says. “We don’t choose which arm the patient participates in. That’s completely done by the research base, which is true of all of our trials.”

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