Sleep Downunder is 8 short weeks away!

7 September 2023

This year’s plenary sessions offer an array of exciting speakers and topics, including an official opening address from the Minister for Health and Aged Care, The Hon. Mark Butler MP. 

This year’s original abstracts are now available in the conference program. Take a look to see what’s new in your field and don’t miss out on the latest at Sleep DownUnder 2023. See you in Adelaide!

 

Official opening

  Minister for Health and Aged Care, Mark Butler, will be officially opening the conference at 8.30am on Thursday 9 November. 


International speaker keynote presentations

  Professor Ruth Benca from the USA will be speaking on Disordered sleep and rhythms: Causes or consequences of psychiatric disorders?
  Professor Russell Foster from the UK will be speaking on Light, circadian rhythms and sleep: Fundamental science to new drug discovery.


New Investigator Award Presentations

  • Investigating the relationship between core body temperature and changes in cognitive performance during simulated night shifts – Alisha Guyett 
  • Deficits in learning and overnight memory consolidation in children with mild sleep disordered breathing – Bethany Menzies 
  • The effect of treating OSA with CPAP on mood and sleepiness – Julie Tolson 
  • Major adverse cardiovascular events in severe obstructive sleep apnoea: associations with symptom subtypes and symptom burden – Bindiya Shenoy 
  • High strain evening exercise disrupts sleep: insights from a real-world examination of ~7-million nights – Josh Leota 
  • Expanding the reach of sleep science: disseminating sleep education to psychology programs online to improve the management of insomnia in mental healthcare – Hailey Meaklim

Helen Bearpark Memorial session and ANZSSA Awards: Inspirational update: how can we incorporate novel respiratory parameters into clinical practice?
This ANZSSA plenary session will feature the latest updates on advances in respiratory measurement by showcasing novel metrics derived from the breathing signals we routinely acquire in the sleep laboratory. We are comfortable with characterizing the severity of sleep-breathing disorders using traditional respiratory metrics despite knowing their limitations. Is it now time to adopt and integrate novel respiratory measures into practice? Do they provide more sensitive and meaningful measures to understand the impact of sleep disordered breathing and to inform personalized treatment pathways for better health outcomes? Experts in this session will share their latest research findings on the utility of novel respiratory measures and offer practical insights and potential approaches for bringing these metrics from the experimental research setting into our sleep labs. Speakers: Thomas Churchward, Brad Edwards, Danielle Wilson, Brett Duce, Bastien Lechat

Sleep health equity in Australian First Nations communities
Sleep health equity in First Nations peoples can be achieved when all stakeholders, i.e., community members, service providers, and researchers, work as equal partners and draw on culturally informed practices to design and implement sustainable solutions. The symposium will share the latest research and community work on sleep health equity in First Nations communities. The presenters include Australia's leading sleep researchers, First Nations Sleep Coaches and members of the First Nations Sleep Health Working Party (Sleep Health Foundation) and Indigenous Sleep Health Working Party (ASA). This session will include case studies on integrating First Nations and Western sleep science, share evidence from culturally-informed sleep health program/service, highlight the impact of community capacity building and offer practical knowledge and strategies for culturally responsive sleep health research and service delivery. Speakers: Roslyn Van Senden, Karen Chong, Yaqoot Fatima, Markesh Fanti, Ching Li Chai-Coetzer, Timothy Skinner