Non-pharmacological improvement of sleep structure in older people

摘要 睡眠不佳和记忆力问题在老年人中很常见，并会产生相当大的后果 包括生产力下降，认知能力下降，事故和交通事故率增加 死亡率和增加的医疗保健费用。这些睡眠和记忆问题通常发生在中年和中年。 老年人，当衰老与失眠、睡眠碎片和注意力受损有关时。 衰老也会影响睡眠阶段和睡眠深度，非快速眼动会发生显著变化 （NREM）睡眠，较轻的NREM睡眠阶段（N1或N2睡眠阶段）的增加和深睡眠阶段的减少。 慢波睡眠（slow wave sleep，N3睡眠）因为深度睡眠与恢复有关 睡眠、记忆巩固和生长激素释放的功能，与年龄相关的深度睡眠减少 对生理恢复、记忆和整体健康有负面影响。本报告的总体目标 拟议的研究是开发一种非药物手段来解决睡眠不足， 在中年人中。最近的几项实验室研究表明， 在成年人中，特定的听觉刺激会导致大脑皮层上慢波的增强。 脑电图（EEG）和记忆力的改善。由于老年人的大脑皮层 在深度睡眠中，通过精确传递的听觉刺激增加慢波产生， 对这一人群尤其有用。到目前为止，使用听觉刺激来改善睡眠已经被证明是有效的。 仅限于实验室环境中的成年志愿者。我们的目标是验证、修改和改进 应用特定的听觉刺激来增加老年人的深度睡眠，并开发一种 系统，可以提供慢波睡眠增强在家里。健康人和患有 睡眠和记忆障碍可以受益于使用该系统。这将是特别有用的老年人 人我们的新系统将是廉价、简单和易于使用的。

ABSTRACT Poor sleep and memory problems are common in older adults and have considerable consequences including decreased productivity, declines in cognitive abilities, increased rate of accidents and traffic fatalities, and increased health care costs. These sleep and memory problems often occur in midlife and in older adults, when aging is associated with insomnia, fragmentation of sleep, and impairment of attention. Aging also impacts sleep stages and sleep depth, with marked changes in non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep, an increase in lighter NREM sleep stages (N1 or N2 stage of sleep) and a decrease in deep or “slow wave” sleep (N3 stage of sleep). Because deep sleep has been associated with the recuperative function of sleep, memory consolidation, and growth hormone release, age-related reduction in deep sleep has a negative impact on physiologic restoration, memory, and overall health. The overall objective of this proposed research is to develop a non-pharmacological means to address sleep deficiencies and well- being in older midlife adults. Several laboratory studies recently demonstrated that precisely-delivered, specific auditory stimulation in adults results in an enhancement of slow waves on the electroencephalogram (EEG) and improvement in memory. Since older adults have a significant reduction in deep sleep, increasing slow wave production by precisely-delivered auditory stimulation could be particularly useful for this population. To date, the use of auditory stimulation to improve sleep has been limited to adult volunteers in laboratory settings. Our objective is to validate, modify, and improve the application of specific auditory stimulation to increase deep sleep in older individuals, and to develop a system that can deliver slow wave sleep enhancement in the home. Both healthy people and patients with disturbances of sleep and memory could benefit from using this system. It will be especially useful in older people. Our new system will be inexpensive, simple and easy to use.