Sleep Complaints Among Elderly Persons: An Epidemiologic Study of Three Communities
Abstract
The frequencies of five common sleep complaints--trouble falling asleep, waking up, awaking too early, needing to nap and not feeling rested--were assessed in over 9,000 participants aged 65 years and older in the National Institute on Aging's multicentered study entitled "Established Populations for Epidemiologic Studies of the Elderly" (EPESE). Less than 20% of the participants in each community rarely or never had any complaints, whereas over half reported at least one of these complaints as occurring most of the time. Between 23% and 34% had symptoms of insomnia, and between 7% and 15% percent rarely or never felt rested after waking up in the morning. In multivariate analyses, sleep complaints were associated with an increasing number of respiratory symptoms, physical disabilities, nonprescription medications, depressive symptoms and poorer self-perceived health. Sleep disturbances, particularly among older persons, oftentimes may be secondary to coexisting diseases. Determining the prevalence of specific sleep disorders, independent of health status, will require the development of more sophisticated and objective measures of sleep disturbances.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Insomnia is estimated to be present at up to 50% of older adults in a study of 9,000 Americans.
“insomnia is estimated to be present at the rate of up to 50% of older adults in a study of 9,000 Americans[15].”
From Preliminary Study on the Effectiveness of Short Group Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (GCBT) on Indonesian Older Adults (2013) · cites this paper as [15]
Prevalence studies suggest that more than half of the older population report some degree of sleep problems.
“Prevalence studies suggest that more than half of the older population report some degree of sleep problems (2).”
From Effects of moderate-intensity exercise on polysomnographic and subjective sleep quality in older adults with mild to moderate sleep complaints (2008) · cites this paper as [2]
A sizeable proportion of the general midlife and older adult population reports chronic, albeit milder, sleep complaints that impair quality of life and lead to health care visits.
“However, a sizeable proportion of the general midlife and older adult population reports chronic, albeit milder, sleep complaints that impair quality of life and result in health care visits (2).”
From Effects of moderate-intensity exercise on polysomnographic and subjective sleep quality in older adults with mild to moderate sleep complaints (2008) · cites this paper as [2]
Older ages, current smoking and former smoking, and alcohol consumption are associated with short sleep in prior work, but they are also associated with long sleep in our data.
“Older ages (7,20,21), current smoking and former smoking, and alcohol consumption (19,36,38,39) are associated with short sleep in prior work, but they are also associated with long sleep in our data”
From Sleep Duration in the United States: A Cross-sectional Population-based Study (2009) · cites this paper as [39]
The citation lists haven’t been fetched yet
Cited by 1,610
- Authors
- Foley, D. J., Monjan, A. A., Brown, S. L., Simonsick, E. M., Wallace, R. B., & Blazer, D. G.
- Affiliations
- National Institutes of Health (US)
- University of Iowa (US)
- Corresponding author
- Foley, Daniel J.
- Venue
- Sleep
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 1995-08
- Volume
- 18
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- 425-432
- ISSN
- 0161-8105 (ISSN-L)
- 1550-9109
- OpenAlex
- W1715752662
- Cited by
- 1,610
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 24 · 2025: 37 · 2024: 58 · 2023: 53 · 2022: 50 · 2021: 73 · 2020: 66 · 2019: 73 · 2018: 69 · 2017: 73 · 2016: 69 · 2015: 66 · 2014: 82 · 2013: 92 · 2012: 72
- FWCI
- 17.40
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- SLEEP (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Sleep and related disorders
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Physiology › Obstructive Sleep Apnea Research
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Sleep and Work-Related Fatigue
- Keywords
- sleep complaints, older adults, insomnia, sleep disorders, daytime sleepiness, napping, respiratory symptoms, physical disability, over-the-counter drugs, depressive symptoms, self-rated health, prevalence
- MeSH terms
- Age Factors, Aged, Female, Health Status, Humans, Sleep Initiation and Maintenance Disorders, Male, Surveys and Questionnaires, Sex Factors, United States, Cohort Studies, Prevalence
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
