Turkish Journal of
GERIATRICS

Gazi Üniversitesi Tıp Fakültesi Göğüs Hastalıkları Anabilim Dalı, ANKARA Over 50% of older adults report regular problems with sleep. Sleep in older adults may be affected by a number of factors, such as medical illness, psychiatric illness, medication use, circadian rhythm changes, or primary sleep disorders. The most prevalent primary sleep disorder is sleep disordered breathing (SDB). The aims of our study were to investigate the symptoms related sleep of the older adults who admitted to our sleep disorders center and to explore the incidence of obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) which is one of the SDB. 251 consecutive patients who admitted to our sleep disorders center, were divided into 3 groups according to age groups: Young group (YG) aged under 40 years (n: 65, 25.9%), adult group (AG) aged 41-60 years (n: 149, 59.4%), and elderly group (EG) aged over 60 years (n: 37, 14.7%). The highest OSAS rate (86.5%) was found in EG. This rate was significantly higher comparing with YG, but not with AG. In comparisons with other two groups separately, the rate of excessive daytime sleepiness complaints in EG was found higher than YG. Hypertension was also seen higher in EG, in comparing with YG and AG. In conclusion, it was emphasized that OSAS incidence was quite high in the elderly and OSAS was an important risk factor for both sleeping problems and cardiovascular diseases in the elderly. Keywords : Obstructive sleep apnea Syndrome, Sleep, elderly