Daily Social Rhythms in the Elderly and Their Relation to Objectively Recorded Sleep

Timothy H. Monk, Charles F. Reynolds, Mary Ann Machen, David J. Kupfer
1992 Sleep  
This study tested the hypothesis that the impaired sleep of healthy 71-91 year olds might be due to circadian dysfunction stemming from irregularity of life·style. Twenty-five old women, 20 old men and 21 young controls (19-28 years old) were studied in relation to 1) objective sleep as measured in the laboratory, 2) subjective sleep quality as measured by the Pittsburgh sleep quality index (PSQI) and 3) the social rhythm metric (SRM), an instrument to quantify the daily rhythms of life.
more » ... y to prediction, the SRM scales revealed that the older group had just as many activities completed and just as much other-person involvement as the young. Moreover, they showed a signific,antly greater regularity in daily life-style than the young, despite showing reliably impaired subjective and objective sleep. This suggests either that these seniors have always been regular in their life-style and that this has been protective of their health and vigor, or that their regularity has been developed as an adaptive response to age-related changes in the circadian system.
doi:10.1093/sleep/15.4.322 fatcat:64sazjftxrg75gw5hmtatccsry