Quality, Amount Of Sleep Declines With Age
Recent research suggests that people in their 80s and 90s typically get fewer hours of sleep, but are less likely to report feeling overly sleepy the next day.
In a relatively large study of 5,407 participants, Dr. Mark L Unruh of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and his colleagues designed a study to determine whether “sleep problems in older adults should be addressed by treating underlying conditions rather than viewed as simply a consequence of aging.”
"This study is novel in part due to the sheer size and scope of the study compared to earlier works," Unruh said.
Each participant was asked to complete a sleep questionnaire and scientists also conducted at-home sleep studies.
Studies showed that the total average nightly sleep time declined from 386 minutes among women in their 40s to 341 minutes among those 80 years of age or older. In men, the corresponding sleep times declined from 361 minutes to 326 minutes.
What’s more, older age was linked to less deep sleep among men.
Researchers noted that older women had a harder time falling asleep.
"If older adults have sleep complaints, (doctors) should take them seriously, since older age wasn’t strongly associated with complaints of worse sleep," Unruh said.
He added that several treatments are available to add sleep quality to older adults.
"The University of Pittsburgh has an age-wise sleep program that is looking at the contribution of sleep to healthy aging, as well as the contribution of chronic health conditions to sleep in older adults," he noted. "We are also investigating conditions such as sleep apnea that may be strongly related to medical illness."
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