[Structure of nocturnal sleep in sleep disorders among middle and late middle-aged patients].

This is a report on the electropolygraphical examination of nocturnal sleep and the study of emotional-personality changes in 53 patients with impaired sleep who were divided into two groups (24 middle-aged and 29 elderly patients). Day-time electropolygraphic examinations were carried out in 39 out of these patients in period of relaxed and alert wakefulness. The patients versus healthy controls showed a reduction in the total duration of sleep, a tendency toward a decrease in delta-sleep, rapid sleep and the number of completed cycles. The patients were further characterized by an increase in the time of falling asleep, the number of spontaneous awakenings and the time of wakefulness in the course of sleep. The elderly as compared with the middle-aged were characterized by a pronounced decrease in night sleep, the duration of Stage II and the number of completed cycles of nocturnal sleep. In the period of alert wakefulness, alpha-responsiveness in some modulated functional states was lower than in the control group.