Older adults less likely to doze off during daytime: Study
POSTED February 1, 2010 - 17:39 | POSTED BY Kangna Agarwal
Last edited by Ishita Sood on February 1, 2010 - 17:48
The study suggests that younger adults are more likely to feel drowsy and feel tired during the day despite sleeping for long at night.
“Our findings reaffirm the theory that it is not normal for older people to be sleepy during the daytime,’ said lead researcher Derk-Jan Dijk, professor of sleep and physiology at the University of Surrey, Britain.
‘Whether you are young or old, if you are sleepy during the day you either don’t get enough sleep or you may suffer from a sleep disorder,’ added Dijk.
Details of the study
Researchers from the University of Surrey looked at 110 healthy adults without any history of sleep disorders to come up with this conclusion.
These included 44 young adults aged 20 to 30 years, 35 middle-aged adults aged 40 to 55 years, and 31 older adults aged 66 to 83 years.
For the study, researchers observed the sleeping patterns of all the participants.
Older adults found to spend less time sleeping
On analysis, it was found that the average sleeping time of eight hours kept waning significantly with age.
The researchers observed that adults over 65 slept for six-and-a-half hours on an average, 20 minutes less than adults aged 40-55, who in turn slept 23 minutes less than young adults aged 20-30.
The older adults woke up more during the night after the onset of initial sleep. Also, the amount spent in deep sleep, the most relaxing phase of sleep declined with age.
During the baseline night, younger adults slept for an average of 433.5 minutes compared to 410 minutes for middle aged adults and 390 for older adults.
The younger adults experienced 118.4 minutes of deep sleep on the same night, compared to 85.3 minutes for middle-aged adults and 84.2 minutes for older adults.
On the other hand, when all the participants were asked to lie in a comfortable position on a bad during the day time, younger adults just took 8.7 minutes to doze off whereas middle aged adults took 12 minutes, and older adults took 14 minutes.
The study appears in the Feb. 1 issue of Sleep, the official journal of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the Sleep Research Society.
