Sleep Disorders in an elderly population and their relationship with cognitive symptoms: an epidemiological survey

Objectives/Introduction:Disturbed sleep is common in elderlypeople and has been related to comorbidities. The aim of this studywas to evaluate the prevalence of sleep problems and their relation-ship with chronic disease in an elderly population.Methods:Subjects were participants of a population‐based studyof older adults for dementia and mild cognitive impairment screeningin Lunigiana. 2,137 subjects (age range 65–85 years, 961 males and1,176 females) were identified as eligible. All patients underwent aclinical interview and a questionnaire about insomnia, sleepiness,snoring, sleep apnea, other sleep disturbances. In addition, subjectswere administered by trained physicians the Mini Mental StateExamination (MMSE), the Beck Depression Inventory, the MemoryAssessment Clinic‐Q (MAC‐Q).Results:The participation rate was 83.5% and 1,784 subjects com-pleted the study: 796 males and 988 females. The mean age of theparticipating subjects was 70.5 years (SD 3.2). Insomnia symptomswere reported in 63.8% of the population. The most common sleepcomplaint was“early awakening”reported by nearly half of subjects(46.6%), 200 patients presented an insomnia syndrome (11.2%).Almost one quarter of the subjects (24.6%) presented excessivesleepiness, while snoring affected the 20.5% of the population andsleep apnoea the 3.4%. Legs jerk were reported in 21.2% of the sub-jects. MMSE as a continuous variable correlated with maintenanceinsomnia (p= 0.04), daytime consequences of insomnia (p= 0.04),excessive daytime sleepiness (p= 0.03), legs jerks (p= 0.03). Univari-ate analysis of insomnia syndrome with number of comorbiditiesshows that having more comorbidities was related with an increasedincidence of insomnia syndrome that increase from 8% (no comor-bidities) to 21% (3 or more comorbidities) with an OR of 1.25.Conclusions:Our results confirm that sleep problems are verycommon in elderly subjects and closely related to medical and psy-chiatric illnesses. Since mutual influences of nocturnal sleep prob-lems and medical disease have been proposed, comorbid sleepdisorders should be fully evaluated by the clinician and should notbe under diagnosed and under treated.Disclosure:Nothing to disclose