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Most older adults don't get 8 hours sleep

Posted on: Tuesday, 16 June 2009, 00:55 CDT

A U.S. study indicates 55 percent of adults reported sleeping on average for seven hours or less per night over the past month, researchers said.

Lead author Karen Rose of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville said less than half of older Americans get the recommended eight hours of nightly sleep. The study involved data from 1,570 men and women age 60 or older, who had completed telephone or in-home surveys.

Older adults who were more educated, had higher household incomes, were black, reported more depressive symptoms, were more active, complained of difficulties maintaining sleep, and complained of leg jerks at night were the most likely to report more difficulty performing everyday functions as related to feeling sleepy or tired, Rose said.

Older adults who were unmarried, black and who reported having more difficulties with initiating or maintaining sleep had statistically greater odds of having shortened sleep duration. People who reported depressive symptoms were also more likely to have short sleep durations, the study said.

We were surprised by the fact that the self-reported amount of physical activity did not predict functional outcomes of sleep, Rose said in a statement. We anticipated that people who reported lower levels of physical activity would have more difficulty with sleep-related functional outcomes.

The findings were presented at Sleep, the 23rd annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies in Seattle.

Source: United Press International

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