Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 7, 2026

Multi-Modal Home Sleep Monitoring in Older Adults
Published on: January 26, 2019
[Sleep duration and functional limitations in older adult]
Arthur Eumann Mesas1, Esther López-García, Fernando Rodríguez-Artalejo
1Departamento de Medicina Preventiva y Salud Pública, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid/IdiPAZ, Madrid, España.
Background And Objective:
To examine the association between sleep duration and functional limitation in older adults from Spain.
Subjects And Methods:
Cross-sectional study with 3,708 individuals representative of the non-institutionalized population aged ≥ 60 years in Spain. Sleep duration was self-reported, and the functional limitations in the instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) were assessed.
Results:
Functional limitations in IADL were identified in 1,424 (38.4%) participants. In analyses adjusted for sociodemographic and lifestyle variables, the percentage of participants with limitation in IADL was higher in those who slept ≤ 5 hours (odds ratio [OR]=1.56; 95% confidence interval [CI]=1.18-2.06) or ≥ 10 hours (OR=2.08; 95%CI=1.67-2.60; p for trend<0.001) than in those who slept 8 hours. The association between long sleep (≥ 10 hours) and functional limitations held even after adjustment for comorbidity and sleep quality (OR=1.77; 95%CI=1.38-2.28) while the association between short sleep (≤ 5 hours) and functional limitation no longer held after this adjustment (OR=1.10; 95%CI=0.80-1.50).
Conclusion:
In older adults, long sleep duration is a marker of functional limitations independent of comorbidity.
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