COMPARISON OF SLEEP MACRO- AND MICROSTRUCTURES IN ELDERLY AND MIDDLE-AGED MALE PATIENTS WITH SEVERE OBSTRUCTIVE SLEEP APNEA: DOES THE DISEASE ERASE DIFFERENCES?

Abstract

Introduction: Age-related changes in sleep attract increased attention from researchers and are studied in the context of micro- and macrostructures. Macrostructures include sleep onset, total sleep time, sleep efficiency, wake time after sleep onset, and non-rapid eye movement and rapid eye movement sleep percentages, latencies and durations. Sleep microstructures refer to a cyclic alternating pattern.The present study aims to investigate how sleep structures in older and middle-aged patients are affected by the widespread disease of obstructive sleep apnea. The authors believe that it provide additional information about sleep disorder pathogenesis. Materials and Method: Patients who received a diagnosis of severe sleep apnea were divided into two groups: age >= 65 years old and 35-45 years old. Macro-and microstructural data from polysomnographic investigations were collected and compared. Results: There were no statistically significant differences for total sleep time, sleep efficiency, wake time after sleep onset, rapid eye movement sleep latency and separate percentages of non-rapid eye movement sleep stages N1, N2 and N3. Regarding sleep microstructures, there were no differences between arousal index, cyclic alternating pattern rates, or percentage ratio of phase subtype. Conclusion: The parameters of the macro- and microstructures in the older group are similar to those of the middle-aged group and are also basically similar to the parameters of previous studies

however, the percentages from phases A1, A2 and A3 are different from most previous works. These considerations indicate the need for future investigation of geriatric sleep in different health and environmental conditions.