Over the past years, only a handful tried to question the prevailing wisdom that sleep starts to deteriorate in late middle age and steadily erodes from then on. Majority of sleep researchers believe that the best way to know more about sleep problems is to ask an elderly, and you will surely get a litany of complaints.
According to Dr. Michael Vitiello, a sleep researcher who is a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of Washington, older people complain more about their sleep. They just do.And for years, this has been the basis of most sleep scientists who thought they knew what was going on.
Recently, however, new findings are giving experts more reasons to have second thoughts and may lead many to change their minds about sleep as they know it. It came as surprise to them that sleep does not really change much from age 60 onwards. Research shows that sleep problems are not due to aging itself, but mostly caused by illnesses or the medications used to treat the elderly.
The more disorders older adults have, the worse they sleep, said Sonia Ancoli-Israel, a professor of psychiatry and a sleep researcher at the University of...