Care of the Patient with a Sleep Disorder

  • Thomas A. Johnson
  • James J. Deckert
Chapter

Abstract

Sleep is a periodically recurring physiologic state of lessened responsiveness from which one can be readily awakened. Quality and quantity of sleep vary with age. Newborns sleep an average of 16 hours each day in randomly fragmented fashion. As an individual matures, sleep usually coalesces into a single prolonged nighttime period, with an average length of 7 to 8 hours in adults. A few individuals function well with as little as 4 hours per day, whereas others require 10 hours or more. Transition into older adulthood produces a gradual increase in total daily sleep time. By age 90 the average is nearly 9 hours per day. In addition, older adults often take longer to fall asleep, take daytime naps, experience more frequent awakenings, and spend less time in the deep states of sleep.1 A wide variety of disorders can interfere with normal sleep patterns.

Keywords

Obstructive Sleep Apnea Sleep Apnea Continuous Positive Airway Pressure Sleep Disorder Obstructive Sleep Apnea Syndrome 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media New York 1998

Authors and Affiliations

  • Thomas A. Johnson
  • James J. Deckert

There are no affiliations available

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