Armenia 2020: Dr. Samson Khachatryan / Armenian Sleep Disorders Association, Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, Armenian National Institute of Health

Delegate: Samson Khachatryan

Affiliations: Armenian Sleep Disorders Association, Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, Armenian National Institute of Health

Short Bio: Dr. Samson Khachatryan is the president of ARSDA being a long time delegate for World SLeep Day in Armenia. With his team and colleagues, and collaborating organizations he organizes WSD activities. The main goal of these activities, events, and seminars is to make available sleep-related knowledge for general population, related specialists, other healthcare professionals, healthcare and medical educational structures, students and residents. He is also the chairman of Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, Armenian National Institute of Health.

Activity: Armenian Sleep Disorders Association (ARSDA) is the main society organizing activities to disseminate and develop sleep science and sleep medicine in Armenia. As usual, a series of events such as TV and radio interviews, educational meetings and seminars were planned during the whole week around WSD 2020.

Interview to a medical website
Ahead of March 13, Dr. Samson Khachatryan had interviews with www.doctors.am, which is one of the most popular official medical news and information resource, headlined with WSD 2020 slogan: “Better Sleep, Better Life, Better Planet”. During the interview Dr. Samson Khachatryan spoke about importance of sleep hygiene rules, covering sleep-related breathing problems such as snoring, apnea and somnambulism. He explained the risks and impacts of those disorders and suggested problem-solving recommendations.
Link: https://www.doctors.am/sleep-day

Interview to a major news agency
Also, in the frames of World Sleep Day, Dr. Samson Khachatryan had an interview for Armenpress, the oldest and the main state news agency in Armenia, entitled “Adjust your sleep schedule, avoid heavy work. March 13 is World Sleep Day”. Sleep hygiene and insomnia were the main topics for the interview.
Link: https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1008420.html

March 11 – Radio event
Public Radio of Armenia hosted Dr. Samson Khachatryan to have an interview titled “Healthy Sleep, Healthy Life”. Aim of this interview was to inform its listeners, mostly general population, about World Sleep Day, and essential impact of sleep on our quality of life, cognitive processes and most common sleep disorders such as insomnia and sleep apnea.
Link: https://soundcloud.com/armradio/njuinzupghai?fbclid=IwAR3x1crShz-at-yufuczwEX6xESHn847JHXHwnqDsMVdEW3VoeFrMWYy9No

March 12 – TV interview and Neuroclub
Live interview at Armenian TV-show called “Bari Luys [Good Morning]”. The interview began with spreading the information on World Sleep Day. Then Dr. Samson Khachatryan spoke about a different aspect of sleep importance, sleep-related problems and management approaches for sleep problems currently in use.
Link: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=560831627972778

On Thursday, March 12 an episode of a weekly educational activity called Neuroclub was dedicated to WSD. Medical students, neurology residents, staff neurologists and other healthcare professionals were participating. Neurology residents from Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, Armenian NIH were presenting topics and journal paperson sleep disorders at Erebouni Medical Center, Yerevan, Armenia.

March 13
ASRDA was planning to hold a two-hour seminar on March 13 entitled “Sleep Medicine: the most multidisciplinary field of medicine”. Multidisciplinary medical audience was invited to witness a series of representative case discussions on various sleep disorders to be covered by Armenian NIH neurology residents.
Unfortunately, due to evolving COVID-19 pandemic in Armenia government prohibited gatherings starting from this very day involving also other necessary restrictions. So we had to cancel all events and activities planned that day and the following days including our seminar, press conference and other activities related WSD.

Location: Yerevan, Armenia

Date of Activity: 11-13.03.2020

Submitted By: Haykuhi Hovakimyan, Samson Khachatryan