Exercise intervention and the sleep quality in relation with the procedural learning in psychosis

Sleep quality in psychosis has been reported to have abnormalities in terms of sleep efficiency, initiation, maintenance and total sleep time (Bromundt et al., 2011; Wulff et al., 2012; Wilson & Argyropoulos, 2012). Some have even argued that such sleep abnormalities may have caused a few cognitive symptoms in psychosis (e.g., Wamsley et al., 2011). In recent years, physical exercise has been reported to have significant effects in reducing cognitive symptoms in patients with psychosis. However, there is no up-to-date study that has investigated the correlation between physical exercise, sleep quality and the cognitive function of patients with psychosis. The aim of this study is to promote a 12-week physical exercise intervention to the psychotic population, and investigate whether the intervention can improve the sleeping quality as well as procedural memory performance. A randomised control trial has been carried out for this study. Patients with psychosis were recruited and randomly assigned to either a 12-week physical exercise intervention or a 12-week Carrom control intervention. Sleep quality (i.e., Insomnia Sleep Index; Bastien et al., 2001, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index; Buysee et al., 1988), cognitive function and clinical scale will be assessed before and after the 12-week intervention.