Precision medicine meets sleep medicine : how can sleep health aid to reduce the preventable burden of non‑communicable diseases?

Abstract

Precision medicine (PM) is an emerging approach for disease prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and management that holds promise for improving the future of sleep healthcare. This concept of PM is guided by evidence-based medicine for treatment decisions by taking into account individual variability in genes, environment, and lifestyle factors. Chronic sleep loss affects millions of people each year, representing an important public health issue. The same approach can be applied in sleep medicine to treat sleep disorders where the physicians and scientists can make accurate predictions concerning the best strategy for an individual/groups in the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and management. This review aims to explore the emerging role of PM and its application in sleep medicine through the integration of innovative technology such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), blockchain technology which aids in the diagnosis and therapeutic modalities. An extensive literature search was done in all the major databases such as PubMed/MEDLINE, Web of Science, Scopus, and Google scholar search engines for the keywords “Precision Medicine” AND “Sleep disorders” OR “Sleep medicine,” and the information is extracted and discussed in this review. Though the PM in Sleep Medicine application is in nascent stages, it is very promising in sleep medicine and is expected in many areas of sleep healthcare in the near future. The application of AI and ML in the concept of PM has revamped the testing, diagnosis, and treatment modalities for sleep disorders which hold a promise to translate these benefits to the global population through sustained efforts of innovation.