The sleep/wake cycle before and after intervention in the routine of institutionalized elderly

Abstract

In these study we compared the sleep patterns, the auricular’s temperature rhythm and the distribution of daily activity in 5 institutionalized elderly (60-75 years old), before and after intervention in daily routine through moderate physical activity, cognitive activity and sleep hygiene education. We verified diurnal sleep reduction, mainly between 15h and 19h, and temperature increase from 19h to 21h in the week of intervention. The activity carried out over the longest time was the intellectual one, followed of social, physical and manual activities. After the intervention, there was an increase of the intellectual activity’s duration in 11-to-15h period possibly related to the small reduction in time previously dedicated to naps. The cognitive and physical intervention resulted in the increase of social and physical activities in 15- to-19h period. No modification was observed in nocturnal sleep patterns. The study showed that by means of simple activities’ employment, it was the possible to reduce the amount of naps and to extend elderly’s activities time due to the relative increase of manual and physical activities and consequent increase of the temperature in the evening. We propose as a complementation to the adopted strategy, to study forms to stimulate and to make possible the participation of the aged in the activities in view of institutional infrastructure and human resources’ limitations.