Sleep and Everyday Functioning in Older Adulthood

Abstract

As individuals age they report increasing numbers of sleep problems (e.g., increased nighttime wakings) and this poorer sleep quality has been associated with increased risk for various medical conditions; however limited research has focused on the implications of sleep quality on everyday functioning in older adulthood. We compared three methods of sleep data collection (wrist actigraphy, self-report questionnaires, and sleep diary) and evaluated their relationships with three approaches to assessing everyday functioning (direct observation, self-report, and paper-and-pencil-based problem-solving tasks) in cognitively healthy older adults. Consistent with previous research, subjective sleep measures correlated significantly with each other but did not correlate with objective sleep measures. Multiple regression analyses revealed neither objective nor subjective sleep measures predicted everyday functioning. Individual variability in sleep may affect prediction of everyday functioning using a cross-sectional sample. Future research should investigate the combined influence of sleep and cognitive factors on everyday functioning in older adults.