THE TREATMENT OF GERONTOLOGIC INSOMNIA

This paper reviews the distinctive features of a sleep in the elderly and related clinical issues. A consolidated nocturnal sleep pattern typifies middle-aged individuals in contrast to fragmented, lighter sleep in old age. Insomniac states in the elderly appear to occur at a relatively high frequency. Some of this may be due to mislabelling normal gerontologie sleep as insomnia by erroneously applying middle-aged sleep norms. Treatment for gerontologie insomnia has exclusively relied on pharmacotherapy, though this often poses additional problems. Psychological interventions might prove worthwhile, but heretofore, have not been attempted with the elderly. It was suggested that an educational approach attempting to teach age-appropriate sleep expectancies could prove fruitful with this popu-lation. It was concluded that gerontologie insomnia is a neglected area of research, partic-ularly within the psychological domain. Résumé Cette étude a pour démarche de réexaminer les différentes caractéristiques du sommeil d'après les observations cliniques faites chez les personnes du 3ème âge. Un typ