Chiu et al. (2017)

Taiwan

RCT Crossover

PEDro=8

N=24

Population: TBI; Mean age=35.9yr; Gender: Male=9 Female=15; Mean Time Post Injury=27.6mo.

Intervention: Using a crossover design, TBI patients received a 30 min, 41°C warm footbath each day for 3d then usual care for 3 days (or vice versa), separated by a 3d washout period.

Outcome Measure: Sleep Efficiency (SE), Sleep Onset Latency (SOL), Total Sleep Time (TST), Wake After Sleep Onset (WASO).

1.        Warm footbaths showed non-significant improvement in SE compared to control (p=0.09).

2.        SOL was significantly reduced during the warm footbath phase as compared with control (p<0.001).

3.        TST was not significantly increased during the warm footbath phase compared with control.

4.        WASO was significantly reduced during the warm footbath phase as compared with control (p=0.006).