Older Women With Sleeping Problems May Have Difficulties With Daily Functions

Older women with sleeping problems are more likely to have difficulties with certain daily functions, moving forward.

Research published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society found that many older adults were as much as four times as likely as middle-aged individuals to have breathing problems during sleep.

Sleep disorder breathing often involves repeated interruptions that decrease in breathing during sleep. This can lead to fragmented sleep and hypoxemia or low blood oxygen levels at times.

"Because sleep-disordered breathing can be treated effectively, it is possible that treatment could help prevent decline in important areas of functioning that allow older adults to remain independent," said Adam Spira, PhD, an associate professor in the Department of Mental Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the study's lead author, in the press release. "As is often the case, more research is needed to investigate this possibility."

As the study was an observational one, researchers can't conclusively state whether or not sleep-disordered breathing caused functional decline. However, they do believe that a strong link exists.

Researchers believe that low blood-oxygen levels may be to blame for sleep-disordered breathing in some cases; not sleep fragmentation-which can also increase the risk of lseep-disordered breathing.