ABSTRACT
Adam B. Hernandez Department of Medicine, Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine, 17 East 102 Street Floor 6th Floor Room West Tower, New York, NY 10029, USA
Steven H. Feinsilver Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine, 1 Gustave Levy Place, New York, NY 10029, USA
Corresponding author: Steven H. Feinsilver, E-mail: steven.feinsilver@mssm.edu
ABSTRACT
Sleep complaints increase with aging, to the degree that it is often difficult to know what normal sleep is in the elderly. In most respects, sleep quality appears to decline, with increased awakenings and reduced slow wave sleep. Circadian rhythm changes may occur with a tendency toward advanced sleep phase. Many medical illnesses are increasingly common with aging and lead to worsened sleep. For all of these reasons, insomnia is more common and often more challenging in older patients. REM behavior disorder is a disease seen largely in the elderly, may be more common than
generally recognized, and in some is the earliest manifestation of progressive neurologic disease.
