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Does poor sleep quality and excessive daytime sleepiness influence fear of falling among older adults? A cross-sectional study

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Abstract

Poor sleep is a risk factor for falling among older adults. This study aimed to investigate whether poor sleep quality and excessive daytime sleepiness in older people was associated with fear of falling. Participants aged 60 years or older were interviewed, with those who did not have preserved cognitive skills being excluded. Data on age, gender, body mass index, alcohol consumption, mental status, depression, excessive daytime sleepiness, sleep quality, comorbidities and fear of falling were collected. Univariate and multivariate linear regression were conducted. The logistic regression assessed the association between daytime sleepiness and fear of falling. The odds of an older adult being afraid of falling was 3 times higher among those with excessive daytime sleepiness, in comparison to those with no excessive daytime sleepiness. The higher the daytime sleepiness, the greater the fear of falling. Health professionals should be aware of older patients’ sleepiness because it can increase fear of falling and influence their treatment.

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Acknowledgements

Our studies are supported by grants from the Associacão Fundo de Incentivo à Pesquisa (AFIP). GLF is supported by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior—Brazil (CAPES)—Finance Code 001) and Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq—#141445/2021-1). RZP, MLA and ST are Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) fellowship recipients.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Fisioterapia, Universidade Estadual Paulista “Júlio de Mesquita Filho” (UNESP), Presidente Prudente, Brazil

    Viviane Akemi Kakazu

  2. Departamento de Fisioterapia, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG), Belo Horizonte, Brazil

    Rafael Zambelli Pinto

  3. Departamento de Psicobiologia, Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP), Rua Napoleão de Barros, 925 Vila Clementino, São Paulo, 04024-002, Brazil

    Vinicius Dokkedal-Silva, Guilherme Luiz Fernandes, Monica Levy Andersen, Sergio Tufik, Gabriel Natan Pires & Priscila Kalil Morelhão

  4. Departamento de Fisioterapia, Universidade Cesumar (UniCesumar), Maringá, Brazil

    Cynthia Gobbi

Authors
  1. Viviane Akemi Kakazu
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  2. Rafael Zambelli Pinto
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  4. Guilherme Luiz Fernandes
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  5. Cynthia Gobbi
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  6. Monica Levy Andersen
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  7. Sergio Tufik
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  8. Gabriel Natan Pires
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  9. Priscila Kalil Morelhão
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Contributions

VAK: conceptualization, methodology, formal analysis, investigation, writing, review and editing. RZP: conceptualization, methodology, review and editing, supervision, administration. VDS: methodology, formal analysis, writing, review and editing. GLF: methodology, formal analysis, writing, review and editing. CG: conceptualization, methodology, formal analysis, investigation, writing, review and editing, supervision, administration. MLA: conceptualization, review and editing, supervision. ST: conceptualization, review and editing, supervision. GNP: conceptualization, methodology, writing, review and editing, supervision. PKM: conceptualization, methodology, formal analysis, investigation, writing, supervision, administration.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Gabriel Natan Pires.

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Conflict of interest

GNP is a shareholder at SleepUp.™ The other authors have no financial or other relationships that might lead to a conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institution and/or the national research committee and with the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. The study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of Sao Paulo State University (CAAE:63835617.0.0000.5402).

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Kakazu, V.A., Pinto, R.Z., Dokkedal-Silva, V. et al. Does poor sleep quality and excessive daytime sleepiness influence fear of falling among older adults? A cross-sectional study. Sleep Biol. Rhythms 20, 287–295 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41105-021-00368-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41105-021-00368-z

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