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Abstract
It is well documented that brain aging is associated with many physiological and pathological changes that affect cognition, physical performance and sleep patterns.
It is also necessary to understand that sleep disturbances are considered an important health concern that may affect quality of life, especially in the elderly, who continue to feel the sensation of ill-being.
This work was carried on a group of 20 healthy Egyptian elderly (above 60 yr), men and women, with a comparison group of adults (20- 32 yr), men and women. The history of sleep characteristics and patterns was evaluated. Radiological and laboratory tests were ran as a routine part of the examination, and finally, an overnight PSG was performed to all subjects to analyze their sleep, to score all the sleep stages, and to detect any sleep disturbance.
The study revealed that sleep of the elderly undergoes many changes; it becomes more fragmented with increased number of awakenings and decreased sleep efficiency, as compared to the adults. The most striking change in sleep of the elderly was that their sleep becomes lighter with decreased percentage of slow wave sleep or deep sleep from the total sleep time.
Sleep apnea/hypopnea syndrome (SAHS) was the most prevalent sleep disorder among the subjects (90%), the interesting point is that the disorder was present even when the subject had no sleep complaint. Periodic limb movement disorder (PLMD) was also common among the subjects (25%) and all of the examined subjects were unaware of the disorder. REM sleep behavior disorder (RBD) could not be detected in the study sample.