Sleep disorders in elderly: is it a problem?
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Sleep disorders are one of the most relevant clinical symptoms in adults, with increasing prevalence throughout life, reaching in large scale the elderly population.
The present study aimed to characterize the sleep disorders in the elderly and its pharmacological therapy.
A cross-sectional study was performed through application of a questionnaire to 381 elderly in pharmacies of Braga, Bragança and Porto cities. Descriptive statistics were used, as well as univariate and multivariate statistical analysis, with significance level of 5%.
The elderly are most from female gender (60.1%), aged between 65 and 74 years (49.6%) and live in rural areas (73.4%). Just 36.5% of elderly practice physical exercise and an important amount of elderly drink coffee and tea (68.8% and 73.2%, respectively). Concerning sleep characteristics, the elderly go to bed between 6 p.m. and 2 a. m. and about half of participants (52.8%) go between 10 p.m. and 12 a. m.. Approximately one third had difficulty in falling asleep (38.1%), especially in elderly from Bragança region. During the sleep, a large proportion of the elderly reported having their sleep stops (78.2%) usually for 15-30 minutes and 26.5% wake up twice in the night. Taking into account that the time it delay to sleep is an important factor, in the present study was statistically related with the gender (p=0,003) and with take medication to sleep (p<0,001). The same factors have statistically related with “wake up during the night” (p=0,046, p=0,003, respectively). 40.7% of the surveyed elderly have diagnosed sleep disorders mainly insomnia (19.7%) following by restless legs syndrome (3.4%), excessive drowsiness (2.9%) and sleep apnea, sleep-walking and narcolepsy (about 1%). It is important refer that from the elderly which assumes suffer sleep disorders just 40.7% have been consulted a doctor. Of those who consulted the doctor, 21.3% of elderly was advised to change their lifestyle habits such as to avoid heavy meals before bedtime, to establish a sleep routine, to lie down only when he/she is sleepy and to practice physical activity. Concerning pharmacological therapy, 41.7% take medication for sleep disorders, 9% take a medication without consulting a doctor, while 32.5% elderly people take medication after consulting a doctor. From these, the most used are benzodiazepines such as alprazolam (12.5%), diazepam (8.6%), lorazepam (4.5%) and brotizolam (3.7%).
Sleep disorders are frequent in elderly population. It is necessary to raise awareness in this population group, which associate the sleep problems to age.
