We conduct world-class research and teaching to improve health through the science of sleep.
FHMRI: Sleep Health (formerly Adelaide Institute for Sleep Health, AISH) is conducting world-leading research to advance knowledge of sleep, sleep disorders and develop new treatments to improve sleep.
We are a multidisciplinary team comprising more than 60 health and medical professionals, students and researches collectively combining clinical, physiology, psychology, engineering and epidemiology expertise. We also have external expert and consumer advisory groups that provide well-developed links to internationally-based Universities, industry partners, professional societies and representatives of those who matter most: patients and the community.
We are ideally placed to design and translate novel and practical diagnostic and treatment including new personalised approaches to improve sleep in the lives of people who suffer from sleep disorders, including the two most common disorders insomnia and sleep apnea.
Our sleep and respiratory physiology research, including clinical trials, aims to better understand obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) mechanisms and pathophysiology, identify novel therapeutic targets, and develop new personalised therapies that are better targeted to underlying mechanisms.
This work has made a significant contribution to advancing the understanding of the underlying physiological mechanisms that contribute to sleep related breathing disorders such as obstructive sleep apnea and is helping to refocus the therapeutic agenda for chronic sleep health conditions. This includes developing and testing a range of new therapies including both devices related and novel pharmacotherapies.
This research is also aligned with our sleep health treatment clinic.
Insomnia is very common and affects people of all ages. There are many different reasons for insomnia. Sleep hygiene, mistimed body clocks, conditioned or habitual insomnia, medications and underlying medical disorders are among the most common causes.
Our research is developing a range of improved, easy to access therapies including Cognitive Behaviour, Stimulus Control and Sleep Restriction, and Bright Light Therapies. This research is also aligned with our sleep health treatment clinic.
eHealth technology, wearable sensors, nearables and data analytics are redefining the way we manage our health and practice medicine.
Our researchers and engineers are working together with industry partners to develop new, evidence-based technologies to better measure sleep, screen for and treat sleep disorders, and manage sleep health in the community and in health clinics.
Insufficient sleep has a significant negative impact on human physical and mental health and ability to function. However, people respond in vastly different ways to sleep loss or sleep disorders. We want to learn why and develop better tools to accurately identify who is most at risk of the adverse consequences of insufficient sleep.
Our research aims to discover and validate new neural, behavioural, and biological biomarkers so that we can better predict how an individual will respond to sleep loss or sleep disorders including the effects on different body organs. We can then use these biomarkers to develop clinically deployable tools. For example, to identify people at high risk of alertness failure and sleep-related performance impairment on the road and at work. These tools have the potential to prevent fatal work or motor vehicle accidents caused by sleep loss or sleep disorders.
Our research focuses on improving models of care across a range of health care settings. The National Centre for Sleep Health Services Research Centre of Research Excellence housed at FHMRI Sleep Health places primary care at the centre of sleep disorders service delivery.
We are focused on the deployment of new simplified, cost-effective technologies, guidelines, and systems to diagnose and manage sleep problems. This includes better connection and support for primary care practitioners by specialist sleep services in a “hub and spoke” model of health service to increase access to care.
Knowing how a person is likely to be impacted by a sleep disorder and how to prevent or manage these conditions and their consequences is an essential part of sleep health research.
Our researchers are conducting innovative longitudinal and cohort research initiatives to promote prevention, and early detection and better management of sleep disorders to improve quality of life, wellbeing, and physical and mental health. This work includes specific clinical populations and the wider community.
Sleep, exercise and healthy eating are the corner stones of leading a healthy life. Missing out on sleep or having a sleep disorder that robs you of good quality sleep can have serious short- and long-term health consequences.
Poor sleep can result in memory and mood disturbance and lead to daytime sleepiness, poor concentration and accidents. In the long-term, chronic sleep deprivation may contribute to a host of health problems including obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Sleep disorders are varied and can affect anyone at any time.
If you are seeking more information about sleep health and disorders, we have useful information available for:
Sleep disorders have a huge impact on the health, productivity and safety of people around the world. The two most common disorders (obstructive sleep apnea and insomnia) alone cost Australia—by conservative estimates—over $5 billion per year.
Disturbingly, current health services and policy fail to cost-effectively manage these disorders; through over-reliance on too complex and costly sleep apnea tests, unregulated industry practices often failing to deliver good outcomes for patients, and poor treatment selection and access in primary care.
You can help or be involved:
We need people with and without sleep disorders to participate in our important research projects. Volunteers’ support is vital to our success.
You can help to improve sleep health and wellbeing in our community by donating to FHMRI Sleep Health.
On the donate page, select Choose a Giving Option and then in the I would like to support, select Adelaide Institute for Sleep Health. We thank you for your valuable support.
We provide community workshops in metro and rural areas and an education outreach program on a range of sleep health issues. We also have long-term international and Australian sleep health partnerships across universities, South Australian Local Health Network and with industry groups. Please contact us to discuss opportunities.
Our dedicated sleep research facility is made up of approximately 900sqm of research and laboratory spaces, including a fully configurable six-bedroom, acoustically treated laboratory equipped with the latest technology to measure respiratory and brain function. There is also separate state of the art driver simulator room and virtual reality space. These rooms can be used to test for the impacts of environmental noise on sleep and conduct live-in sleep deprivation and circadian experiments.
In addition there are Sleep Health Clinic Rooms for consultations and research.
There is space to accommodate over 60 research staff. However, perhaps the most significant advantage of our facility is its ability to facilitate cross-disciplinary scientific collaborations in translational research
We are extremely proud of the combination of such cutting-edge laboratories, the latest technology, and work spaces that are home to our world-class teaching and research into respiratory and non-respiratory sleep disorders.
Professor Eckert is a National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia Leadership Fellow and a Mathew Flinders Professor at Flinders University. He serves as Director of FHMRI Sleep Health and was the inaugural Deputy Director and Clinical Translation Theme Lead at Flinders Health and Medical Research Institute (FHMRI).
Professor Eckert leads a comprehensive basic sciences and translational research program that focuses on identification of the causes of sleep apnea, optimisation of existing therapies, and development of new tailored therapies. He is most well-known for his pioneering respiratory phenotyping work which has led to a new precision medicine therapeutic framework to understand and treat OSA and for his research on the role of arousal mechanisms on sleep apnea pathogenesis and novel pharmacotherapy. He has published more than 170 articles in the leading sleep and respiratory medicine and other cross-disciplinary and general medical journals.
His previous appointments include Professor of Medicine at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Principal Research Scientist at Neuroscience Research Australia where he maintains affiliate appointments, and Assistant Professor within the Division of Sleep Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston.
Professor Robert Adams is a specialist respiratory and general physician with extensive experience in public health, clinical epidemiology and health services research. He completed post-doctoral training at the Channing Laboratory, Harvard Medical School and is currently appointed as Professor in the College of Medicine and Public Health at Flinders University.
Professor Adams has extensive experience with large population-based cohort studies. He is Principal Investigator of The North West Adelaide Health Study (NWAHS) and co-led the process of harmonisation with the Florey Adelaide Male Ageing Study (FAMAS), such that there are now over 2000 men aged over 35 being followed in the Male Androgen, Inflammation, Lifestyle, Environment and Stress (MAILES) study with a further 2000 women in the cohort. He was responsible for the conduct of sleep studies in almost 850 men in the MAILES cohort, one of the largest studies worldwide of sleep health in the community.
He has authored more than 285 peer-reviewed publications in journals and books, including top ranked journals in clinical endocrinology (Diabetes Care), allergy (Journal of Allergy & Clinical Immunology), sleep (Sleep), respiratory medicine (Lancet Respiratory Medicine; American Journal of Respiratory & Critical Care Medicine), and general medicine (Lancet).
Title/role | Name | ResearchNow |
Professor, Director | Danny Eckert | View profile → |
Professor, Medical Director | Robert Adams | View profile → |
Professor | Peter Catcheside | View profile → |
Emeritus Professor | Leon Lack | View profile → |
Associate Professor | Sutapa Mukherjee | View profile → |
Associate Professor | Ching Li Chai-Coetzer | View profile → |
Associate Professor | Andrew Vakulin | View profile → |
Senior Research Fellow | Kristy Hansen | View profile → |
Senior Research Fellow | Nicole Lovato | View profile → |
Ms | Carolin Tran | View profile → |
FHMRI Sleep Health team, 2021
Sturt Rd, Bedford Park
South Australia 5042
South Australia | Northern Territory
Global | Online
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