[Sleep characteristics of elderly and very long-lived subjects]

Through the method of the "questionnaire" quantitative and qualitative aspects of the sleep of a group of 24 eldery people and of 24 very old people have been studied. Regarding the sleep of the eldery person the attention is recalled to two data: the presence of dreams of "erotic" contents in 50% of the subjects and the lack of a substancial difference between the agregate duration of sleep of the adult compared to that of the eldery person. About the sleep of the very old person the A.A. underlines the tendency to sleep more in old age: in this research, one hour more than the eldery. The very old people in the total of examined cases are people that, during life, have always gone to bed "early" in the evening. It is suggestive that only two out of 24 very old people have declared to have "anguishing" dreams.