Northwestern study finds that doctors ignore sleep problems of elderly patients

More than two-thirds of older patients report sleep problems, butdoctors rarely note these complaints in the patients’ charts, aNorthwestern University study finds.  The study, published in arecent issue of the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, included1,503 patients aged 60 and older who visited their primary-caredoctors. After the visits, social workers surveyed the patients aboutsleep problems.  The social workers learned that 69 percent of the patients had at least one sleep complaint,and 40 percent had two or more. Forty-five percent of the patients saidthey had “difficulty falling asleep, staying asleep, or being able tosleep.”  Despite the high rate of sleep complaints among thepatients, a sleep complaint was only reported by the doctor in thepatient’s chart 19 percent of the time, even when the patient indicatedsleep problems in all five sleep questions on the survey.  Thisis important, since previous research has linked sleep disorders in theelderly to poorer mental and physical health and quality of life.  “A doctor may not think that it’s very important to ask the patientabout sleep. We (the researchers) hypothesize that doctors think thatsleep problems are a normal part of aging, and there’s not much theycan do about it,” study author Kathryn Reid, a research assistantprofessor of neurology at Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine,said in a prepared statement.

Source:  Asbury Park Press, http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070112/LIFE11/70112010/1006/LIFE