Problem faced by the elderly people of sleeping less may be due to other reasons than age itself.
Research has found out that the loss of sleep that had been associated with increased age for the elderly population as normal may not be so normal at all. Instead, the findings of the research show that there may be other factors involved that can lead to insomnia or lack of sleep for the geriatric people.The research findings point to five steps that can help the physicians in identifying the older people who are suffering from loss of sleep and provide treatment to them to overcome their problems. The steps given by the researcher include asking questions to the patient to detect the problem of lack of sleep, elaborate on the problem, determine if that is medical or psychiatric by nature, further evaluation to judge if insomnia is chronic by nature, and use intervention.
Researchers feel that it is possible to treat the problem of lack of sleep and its associated problems of fatigue or irritability in the geriatric people in order to avoid further complications like depression that may stem from insomnia.
Reference: Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, July 2005
