Board Certified Internist,
Sleep Disorders Specialist, and Author
Dr. Barry Krakow

June 8, 2008

The Show

"Turning Nightmares into Dreams"

Barry Krakow, MD, is a board certified internist and sleep disorders specialist, who has spent 25 years in medicine in the fields of internal medicine, emergency medicine, addiction medicine, and sleep medicine. Currently, he is medical director of two sleep facilities in Albuquerque, NM: Maimonides Sleep Arts & Sciences, Ltd, a community-based, sleep medical center and the Sleep & Human Health Institute, a non-profit sleep research institute.

Dr. Krakow's research team has established many firsts in the field of sleep medicine, including:

• The first randomized controlled study to demonstrated that a cognitive-imagery technique can successfully decrease chronic nightmares without medication or psychotherapy
• The first studies to show that trauma survivors suffer inordinately high rates of sleep breathing problems that worsen their insomnia, anxiety, depression, and posttraumatic stress symptoms
• The first studies to link sleep breathing problems to insomnia complaints among psychiatric patients
• The first case series showing that treatment of sleep breathing problems decreases insomnia problems in many different types of insomnia patients
• The first study to show that a large proportion (50%) of sleep center patients with sleep apnea also suffer from clinically significant insomnia symptoms, which may interfere with their efforts to treat their sleep breathing problems
• The first study to show that evidence-based sleep medicine treatments could help disaster survivors and crime victims with sleep problems
• The first randomized controlled study to demonstrate that nasal dilator strips can reduce insomnia symptoms in patients with likely sleep-disordered breathing

Dr. Krakow's research group is one of the most published on the evaluation and treatment of sleep disorders in mental health patients, including more than 30 peer-reviewed papers and abstracts in this field. In addition, he has authored or co-authored four books on this topic as well.