The sleep of older people in hospital and nursing homes

Disturbed sleep can affect personal wellbeing and impede the rehabilitation and recovery of older people from illness. This paper reports the findings of a pilot study which included examination of sleep quality and sleep patterns of older people in community hospital and nursing home settings. A marked proportion of older people reported sleeping well in nursing care settings, and those in nursing homes slept better than those in the community hospital. The main causes of sleep disturbance in both settings were: needing to go to the toilet, noise, pain, and discomfort; a similar pattern was seen across the different settings. No discernible difference was found in quality of sleep and whether patients felt rested or not between those patients on hypnotic medication and those who were not. The implications of the findings for practice and future research are discussed.