Sleep in assisted living facility residents versus home-dwelling older adults.

BACKGROUND

Sleep problems among assisted living facility (ALF) residents are not well understood, and sleep-related differences between ALF residents and home-dwelling older adults have not been examined.

METHODS

We compared sleep patterns in 19 ALF residents to sleep patterns in 19 matched home-dwelling older people (age > or =65 years). All were participating in the follow-up portion of a longitudinal study of sleep and functional outcomes following post-acute rehabilitation. Sleep was assessed with the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index and 1 week of wrist actigraphy.

RESULTS

By actigraphy, ALF residents awoke earlier in the morning and exhibited more nighttime awakenings compared to home-dwelling participants (06:50 hours +/- 1:29 hours vs 07:51 hours +/- 1:19 hours and 19.5 +/- 8.5 vs 12.9 +/- 11.4 awakenings, respectively).

CONCLUSIONS

Larger studies are needed to confirm these initial findings that ALF residents have more disrupted sleep than do home-dwelling older persons, and to examine the functional and health consequences of poor sleep among ALF residents.