ABSTRACT
The likelihood of change occurring in previously well-established sleeping patterns increases with age. Directly influenced changes are those which are due, or are assumed to be due to the ageing of the nervous system and the physiological mechanisms which control sleep and waking. Deteriorating sleep quality has long been recognised as a feature of the ageing process, and sleeplessness has not infrequently been included among the more traditionally listed maladies of old age. In recent years links between ageing and declining sleep quality have been confirmed in questionnaire surveys conducted both in Britain and in the United States. The research evidence also shows that the duration of each of these episodes of intervening wakefulness tends to increase with age, suggesting that older individuals not only wake more frequently during the night, but also experience greater difficulty in returning to sleep once disturbed. Older individuals also appear to respond less efficiently to cumulative occupational sleep loss.
