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Stories for Reprint
Older People with Arthritis Lack Sleep
By Ferdous Al-Faruque, MARRTC Staff
Many Americans don't get enough sleep. However, a new national study has found that people older than 50 often have more difficulty sleeping compared to the average American. If you're older and have arthritis, the problem can be even greater.
Researchers from the University of Southern Mississippi and the University of Alabama at Birmingham analyzed data collected from thousands of phone interviews conducted by state departments of health and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Nadine James, the principal investigator of the study, says people with arthritis often have fatigue and pain due to their disease, which may be made worse with lack of sleep. "With less sleep you're going to be even more fatigued, with more fatigue you are going to have more exacerbation of pain," she says.
James, who is also a professor of nursing at the University of Southern Mississippi, says people often don't realize how important sleep is for the human body. According to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, sleep may help cells in our bodies to regenerate from the activities we do when we are awake. Not getting enough sleep may weaken our immune system and make us more likely to get sick. Some scientists also think sleep may be crucial in helping our brain repair and rewire itself. Several recent studies have found that sleep deprivation may also be linked to kidney problems, heart disease and diabetes. To get the message across, James is working with the CDC to put together a two-hour course to teach people with arthritis what good sleep is, why it's important and how they can get it.
James says another problem is health care professionals often overlook their patients' sleep habits. "Health professionals need to make sure they're asking their patients about sleep," she says. However, she also says because arthritis is a complex disease they need to treat people based on each individual's disease type.
To help health care professionals diagnose whether or not their patients have problems sleeping and to get to the root of the problem James is also putting together a questionnaire that they can go over with their patients. "We need to identify what the issue is first of why they are not getting quality sleep, and patients can tell us (why they're not getting enough sleep)," says James.
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