Illness, Not Age Itself, Most Often the Trigger of Sleep Problems in Older Adults
Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text.
- KEYWORDS:
- diagnosis
- elderly
- sleep disorders
When older adults sleep poorly, medical illnesses, or treatments for those illnesses, likely are at fault, not age per se, sleep specialists say. Sleep disorders may exacerbate medical illnesses or complicate their treatment.
Poor sleep in older adults is often caused by an underlying illness or its treatment.
Progress in sleep and aging research in the past 5 years has yielded some effective interventions that benefit both sleep and overall health, according to speakers at a congress on sleep, health, and aging held in Washington, DC, this spring. Presented by the National Sleep Foundation (NSF) in cooperation with the National Institute on Aging (NIA) and a host of other agencies and medical groups, the conference aimed to bridge the gap between science and the bedside.
It's a hefty gap.
Physicians gave International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision sleep diagnoses to only 20 of nearly 25 000 patients at a community health …
