Giganti Fiorenza, Ficca Gianluca, Gori Sara, Salzarulo Piero
Department of Psychology, University of Florence, Via San Niccolò 93, 50125 Florence, Italy.
Brain Res Bull. 2008 Jan 31;75(1):66-9. doi: 10.1016/j.brainresbull.2007.07.022. Epub 2007 Aug 14.
The night sleep of 12 healthy subjects aged 76-98 was polygraphically investigated in order to analyse body movements and their association with sleep stages at very old age; this group was compared with 11 healthy old subjects aged 61-75 years. In very old subjects sleep is less punctuated by body movements and the association of body movements with each sleep stage is further modified compared to less old subjects. Short-lasting movements emerge indifferently from stage 1, stage 2 and REM sleep, but are significantly less frequent in SWS. Furthermore, in very old subjects the probability of awakening after body movements is higher than in old subjects, suggesting that sleep is more vulnerable to the occurrence of body movements than at previous ages. The difficulty in the elderly to maintain a stable state expresses the inability to sustain and coordinate stable physiological activities characteristic of the old age. In addition, the presence of numerous awakenings, not preceded by movements, supports the hypothesis that the awakening in the very old people may be a sudden event, as should be confirmed by the study of other behavioural and physiological activities preceding awakening.
为了分析高龄老人的身体运动及其与睡眠阶段的关系，对12名年龄在76 - 98岁的健康受试者的夜间睡眠进行了多导睡眠图研究；并将该组与11名年龄在61 - 75岁的健康老年受试者进行了比较。与年龄较小的受试者相比，高龄老人睡眠中身体运动的打断较少，且身体运动与每个睡眠阶段的关联也有进一步变化。短暂运动在快速眼动睡眠期、1期和2期睡眠中均有出现，但在慢波睡眠中明显较少。此外，高龄老人在身体运动后醒来的可能性高于老年受试者，这表明睡眠比以前更容易受到身体运动的影响。老年人难以维持稳定状态，这表现出他们无法维持和协调老年期特有的稳定生理活动。此外，存在许多无运动前驱的觉醒，这支持了一个假设，即高龄老人的觉醒可能是一个突然事件，这一点应通过对觉醒前的其他行为和生理活动的研究来证实。
