Study may help distinguish older adults with insomnia from good sleepers
American Academy of Sleep Medicine
Thursday, February 21, 2013
A study in the February issue of the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine sought to to identify the optimal quantitative thresholds that differentiate older adults with insomnia from good sleepers. Results show that sleep diary parameters discriminated individuals with insomnia from good sleepers more accurately than actigraphy. A related commentary on the study notes that consensus regarding insomnia cut-points in older adults would reduce variability in population estimates of insomnia; however, the commentator cautions that the use of cut-points in clinical practice should be limited to goal setting and not to diagnosis.