54 Recruitment for the Couples Healthy Aging Rhythms and Sleep (CHARMS Study)

Faculty Mentor: Kelly Baron (Family & Preventative Medicine, University of Utah)

Introduction

This study is a Couple Healthy Aging Rhythms and Sleep also known as the CHARMS study (Troxel et al., 2025). This is longitudinal study examines how sleep patterns in couples influence each other’s sleep quality and memory over a two-year period. This abstract focuses on the recruitment eligibility for CHARMS participants.

Methods

The goal of recruiting for a larger longitudinal study of couples, sleep and cognitive function among adult couples in which one partner is showing cognitive decline. Reasons for not participating include no response, not interested, or ineligible. The criteria for ineligibility included: under the age of 50, single, neither or both members of the couple experiencing mild cognitive decline, or diagnosed with dementia, among others. There were different approaches used for recruitment such as Facebook, paper flyers, community health workers and the university data base. The process of recruitment used mTICS (modified Telephone Interview for Cognitive Status), which is a brief memory screening for each participant over the phone (Duff et al, 2015).

Results

A total of 82 individuals (46 couples) had evidence of cognitive decline reporting independence in daytime functioning, while 210 individuals (105 couples) did not, disqualifying them from the study. A total of 217 participants were under the age of 50, making them ineligible for the study.

Discussion

Among the participants who applied, age was the most disqualifying factor, preventing 217 individuals from proceeding to the next steps for screening. Cognitive abilities were another common disqualifier in those 292 individuals that completed the screening process had either both or neither partner with mild cognitive decline. Limitations & Future Directions: Majority of participants identified as white, targeting older communities in the future to avoid applicants outside the age range.

Bibliography

Duff, K., Tometich, D., & Dennett, K. (2015). The Modified Telephone Interview for Cognitive Status is More Predictive of Memory Abilities Than the Mini-Mental State Examination. Journal of geriatric psychiatry and neurology, 28(3), 193–197. https://doi.org/10.1177/0891988715573532

Troxel, W. M., Baucom, B. R. W., Euler, M. J., Bermudez, B., & Baron, K. G. (2025). The CHARMS study: rationale and study protocol for an observational study of sleep and biobehavioral rhythms in older adult couples. Sleep advances : a journal of the Sleep Research Society, 6(3), zpaf043. https://doi.org/10.1093/sleepadvances/zpaf043