According to Jeanne F. Duffy, and Charles A. Czeisler's paper titled "Tolerate Sleep Deprivation," sleep quality and duration both decrease as we age. Because of this deterioration (measured in items such as sleep continuity and intensity), wakeful mental functioning also appears to generally decrease. I can attest to this decline as I see it in my grandmother, although sometimes more pronounced than others. It is worth noting that she also has been diagnosed with dementia, so is going of course to be consistently forgetful and often confused about her day-to-day surroundings. However, there are days I have visited her when we have carried on fluid, "heady" conversations with her actually able to keep up. Other days, her sentences are do not connect well and she is sleepy, wanting to "close [her] eyes for just a few minutes." She has low blood pressure and is wheelchair bound, so many of her struggles do not come as s surprise to me, but for 95 years old, I like to consider my family blessed that she is present and comfortable every day.
The article mentioned that despite the logical conclusion of the aforementioned decline of mental functioning and alertness during wake time as a correlate to sleep deprivation and lack of sleep quality as we age, a lot of research points to associations between medicine or other medical conditions and decreased mental daytime functioning. To consider the effects of sleep deprivation as people age, the study considered 37 largely older participants for review in a 9-day inpatient set of circadian rhythm studies. Subjects were taking no medications, reported no chronic medical issues, and were in typically good medical and psychological health for their age groups. These parameters were determined by urinalysis, complete blood count, electrocardiogram, and psychological questionnaires. The constant routine was characterized by 26-hour monitored vigil of wakefulness, with hourly snacks for subjects and consistent dim light. Sustained attention was tested every two hours using the Psychomotor Vigilance Task, or PVT, in which subjects respond as quickly as possible to visual stimuli for 10 minutes with random interstimulus intervals.
Results showed that older participants actually rated themselves as more alert than younger participants on the KSS (Karolinska Sleepiness Scale). This finding definitely surprised me because in my experience, young people tend to rebound from sleep deprivation more readily (i.e. coming back from the "all-nighters") than do older adults. Young people however I think tend to rely on more alertness aids than do older adults as well (caffeine, monster, Heaven forbid Four Loco). The study found few attentional failures in their procedures, another interesting result considering how sleep deprived subjects were. It was found that younger adults are in fact more susceptible to the effects of sleep deprivation than are young-old adults. Specifically, younger adults were at greater risk for falling asleep and had slower response times.
This information challenges the traditional notion, including my own, that older people are more sleepy and less alert than young adults. I know that my grandmother gets frustrated with her lack of mental functioning, as she has always been a conversational and scholarly woman, but if she had total mental ability, I can assure you she would out-debate me any day on many subjects. Seeing as I have been both sick and sleep-deprived for the last few days, maybe I should realize that I am only a weak young person, unable to cope with sleep deprivation as well as my grandmother. She has a controlled bedtime and wake time as she lives in an assisted living facility. Perhaps I myself would benefit from a more routine schedule so as to achieve better sleep quality.
This week I commented on Bisma Ikram's and Kaitlyn Peterson's blogs.
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