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

Özet

Introduction: Age-related changes in sleep attract increased attentionfrom researchers and are studied in the context of micro- and macrostructures.Macrostructures include sleep onset, total sleep time, sleep efficiency, waketime after sleep onset, and non-rapid eye movement and rapid eye movementsleep percentages, latencies and durations. Sleep microstructures refer to a cyclicalternating pattern.The present study aims to investigate how sleep structuresin older and middle-aged patients are affected by the widespread disease ofobstructive sleep apnea. The authors believe that it provide additional informationabout sleep disorder pathogenesis.Materials and Method: Patients who received a diagnosis of severe sleep apneawere divided into two groups: age ≥ 65 years old and 35-45 years old. Macro-andmicrostructural data from polysomnographic investigations were collected andcompared.Results: There were no statistically significant differences for total sleep time,sleep efficiency, wake time after sleep onset, rapid eye movement sleep latencyand 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 oldergroup are similar to those of the middle-aged group and are also basically similar tothe parameters of previous studies; however, the percentages from phases A1, A2and A3 are different from most previous works. These considerations indicate theneed for future investigation of geriatric sleep in different health and environmentalconditions.