Excessive daytime sleepiness in older adults may be a symptom of health issues like sleep apnea, cognitive impairment, or cardiovascular issues. Sleep Apnea: Obstructive sleep apnea can cause pauses in breathing during sleep.
Compared with younger adults, the elderly spend more time in bed but have deterioration in both the quality and quantity of sleep. All of these changes can lead to excessive daytime sleepiness, which in turn can lead to intentional and unintentional napping.
Their organs are slowing down, and they have less energy. As a result, their body needs more rest to work effectively. When people grow older, they also spend more time sleeping because they can't do as many things as quickly as before. Sleep signifies the end of one's day and enables the body to make quick repairs.
Sleeping more and more is a common feature of later-stage dementia. As the disease progresses, the damage to a person's brain becomes more extensive and they gradually become weaker and frailer over time.
Sleep and Aging
Older adults need about the same amount of sleep as all adults—7 to 9 hours each night. But, older people tend to go to sleep earlier and get up earlier than they did when they were younger.
According to their internal body clock, most older adults need to go to sleep around 7 p.m. or 8 p.m. and wake up at 3 a.m. or 4 a.m. Many people fight their natural inclination to sleep and choose to go to bed several hours later instead.
What Is Narcolepsy? Narcolepsy is a neurological disorder that affects your ability to wake and sleep. People with narcolepsy have excessive, uncontrollable daytime sleepiness. They may also suddenly fall asleep at any time, during any type of activity.
You are free to share this article under the Attribution 4.0 International license. For people over the age of 65, getting more than nine hours of sleep on a regular basis may be an early sign of the onset of dementia or Alzheimer's disease, a new study suggests.
Hypersomnia means excessive sleepiness. There are many different causes, the most common in our society being inadequate sleep. This may be due to shiftwork, family demands (such as a new baby), study or social life. Other causes include sleep disorders, medication, and medical and psychiatric illnesses.
Hypersomnia is a condition in which people have excessive daytime sleepiness. This means they feel tired during the day. Hypersomnia can also include situations in which a person needs to sleep a lot. This may be due to other medical conditions, but can also be due to a problem in the brain.
In general, older people sleep less, wake up and go back to sleep more often, and spend less time in deep sleep or dreaming than younger people. But at any age, you still need quality rest to be healthy.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines an “older adult” as someone who is at least 60 years old. Many states may also have different definitions of “elderly” when determining what resources are available in cases of elder abuse, although most states commonly use 65 years of age as the cut-off.
By the age of 80, cerebral blood flow is approximately 20% less than at age 30, which means that the heart has less capacity for physical exertion and may feel fatigued more easily. As a result, we feel a gradual decline in our energy and endurance levels.
“While consistently getting less than the recommended amount of sleep has been associated with multiple adverse health outcomes, sleeping more than nine hours per night regularly may also be detrimental,” Makekau says. She says oversleeping can lead to: Increased fatigue and low energy. Decrease in immune function.
Older adults are more likely to take naps during the daytime due to age-related changes in circadian rhythms and sleep patterns. Cultural beliefs, chronic conditions, medications, and lifestyle changes can also contribute to daytime napping.
Like insufficient sleep, oversleeping is a sign of disordered sleep. It may be connected to a mental health issue, such as depression. It's often a signal that a person is experiencing poor sleep quality, and it can be a sign of a clinical sleep disorder, including obstructive sleep apnea or narcolepsy.
Abstract. Introduction: The five-word test (5WT) is a serial verbal memory test with semantic cuing. It is proposed to rapidly evaluate memory of aging people and has previously shown its sensitivity and its specificity in identifying patients with AD.
The Mini-Cog test.
A third test, known as the Mini-Cog, takes 2 to 4 minutes to administer and involves asking patients to recall three words after drawing a picture of a clock. If a patient shows no difficulties recalling the words, it is inferred that he or she does not have dementia.
The most common causes of excessive sleepiness are sleep deprivation and disorders like sleep apnea and insomnia. Depression and other mental health conditions, certain medications, and medical conditions affecting the brain and body can cause daytime drowsiness as well.
Many men feel tired and overwhelmed each day, especially with the busy lives that many people lead. Lifestyle factors can cause low energy levels, such as sleep patterns, exercise, and diet. Medical conditions, such as low testosterone and sleep apnea, can also cause low energy levels in men.
It is important to have an open and honest conversation with your boyfriend about his excessive sleep and how it is impacting your relationship. It would be a god idea to encourage him to see a doctor or a sleep specialist to rule out any underlying medical conditions that may be causing the excessive sleep.
Daytime napping among older people is a normal part of aging – but it may also foreshadow Alzheimer's disease and other dementias. And once dementia or its usual precursor, mild cognitive impairment, are diagnosed, the frequency and/or duration of napping accelerates rapidly, according to a new study.