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Updated: Jul 2, 2026

Multi-Modal Home Sleep Monitoring in Older Adults
Published on: January 26, 2019
Association between sleep and physical function in older men: the osteoporotic fractures in men sleep study
Thuy-Tien L Dam1, Susan Ewing, Sonia Ancoli-Israel
1Department of Medicine, University of California at San Diego, La Jolla, California, USA. tldam@ucsd.edu
Objectives:
To determine whether sleep quality is associated with physical function in older men.
Design:
Cross-sectional.
Setting:
Six U.S. centers.
Participants:
Two thousand eight hundred sixty-two community-dwelling men.
Measurements:
Total hours of nighttime sleep (TST), wake after sleep onset (WASO), sleep latency (SL), and sleep efficiency (SE) measured using actigraphy; sleep stage distribution, respiratory disturbance index (RDI), and hypoxia measured using polysomnography; measures of physical function: grip strength, walking speed, chair stand, and narrow walk.
Results:
In age-adjusted models, <6 or >8 hours TST, SE less than 80%, WASO of 90 minutes or longer, RDI of 30 or greater, and hypoxia were associated with poorer physical function. (Mean grip strength was 2.9% lower and mean walking speed was 4.3% lower in men with WASO >or=90 minutes than men with WASO <90 minutes.) After adjusting for potential covariates, differences in grip strength and walking speed remained significantly associated with WASO of 90 minutes or longer, SE less than 80%, and hypoxia but not with TST or RDI of 30 or greater.
Conclusion:
Greater sleep fragmentation and hypoxia are associated with poorer physical function in older men.
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