ABSTRACT
Sleep medicine and clinical neuropsychology are highly complementary fields. Specialization in one field provides a knowledge base accelerating specialization in the other (Greiffenstein, 2001). Both require (a) knowledge of the neurosciences and measurement theory, (b) integration of much multimodal data into a diagnostic theory, and (c) assessment of dual sleep and cognitive complaints. In the individual patient, it is not clear whether sleep and cognitive complaints have a causal relationship, share the same underlying syndrome, or are completely independent of each other. The interaction of sleep and aging has many controversies that have yet to be settled, and some of these controversies are of great interest to neuropsychologists. The purpose of this chapter is to provide an overview of basic sleep concepts, the sleep and aging literature, and neuropsychological studies in sleep disordered older persons.
