Summary of best evidence for non-pharmacological management of sleep disturbances in patients with mild cognitive impairment or early dementia: an integrative review.

AIM: To consolidate the best evidence on non-pharmacological management of sleep disturbances in patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) or early dementia, providing a basis for clinical and community healthcare professionals to develop evidence-based sleep care plans.

METHODS

Following the "6S" evidence resource model, evidence was retrieved using a top-down approach, prioritizing higher-level synthesized evidence. Eligible evidence types included clinical practice guidelines, expert consensus documents, best practice reports, clinical decision-support documents, evidence summaries, and systematic reviews. A comprehensive search was conducted from database inception to August 2025 across point-of-care evidence resources, guideline repositories, professional organization websites, and bibliographic databases.

RESULTS

Twenty-two publications were included: 2 guidelines, 3 best practice reports, 4 expert consensus documents, 4 clinical decision documents and 9 systematic reviews. From these, 44 best evidence items were identified across 11 themes: risk factors, sleep screening, sleep assessment, sleep hygiene, cognitive behavioral therapy, light intervention, exercise interventions, multimodal interventions, other interventions, sleep monitoring, and health education and social support.

CONCLUSION

This study summarizes the best evidence for non-pharmacological management of sleep disorders in people with MCI and early dementia across 11 domains. These pieces of evidence can provide guidance for clinical or community healthcare professionals in formulating and implementing sleep care plans for this population, and may help improve sleep outcomes, quality of life, and caregiver well-being. In clinical practice, professionals should make context-specific judgments and fully consider patient preferences and resource constraints when selecting and applying the evidence.

SYSTEMATIC REVIEW REGISTRATION: http://ebn.nursing.fudan.edu.cn/home, identifier: ES202610453.