Objective assessment of sleep and sleep problems in older adults with intellectual disabilities.
Most older adults with ID have measurable sleep problems you can catch with a simple wrist monitor.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Hanson et al. (2013) strapped Actiwatch sleep monitors on older adults with intellectual disability.
The team wanted hard numbers on how long people actually slept and how often they woke up.
No pills or training were given—this was a pure look-and-record study.
What they found
Three out of four adults had at least one real sleep problem.
Most people stayed in bed a long time but slept far less than expected.
Poor sleep showed up even when staff and families saw no issue.
How this fits with other research
Huang et al. (2014) asked caregivers the same question and got the same answer: sleep is lousy.
K-Alanay et al. (2007) used caregiver reports for other health issues; Ellen swapped reports for wrist watches and still found trouble.
Andrade et al. (2014) and Wilson et al. (2023) used blood tests and walking tests in the same Dutch HA-ID group. Ellen’s actigraphy adds a new layer—sleep—to the same aging checklist.
Why it matters
If you serve adults with ID over 50, add a five-night Actiwatch check to your annual plan. Treat poor sleep like vision or dental issues—screen early, refer fast, and watch daytime behavior improve.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Little is known about sleep in older adults with intellectual disability (ID). Aim of this study was to investigate sleep and its associated factors, and to estimate the prevalence of sleep problems in this population. This study was part of the healthy aging and intellectual disabilities study. Sleep was assessed using the Actiwatch, a watch-like device that measures sleep and wakefulness based on movement activity. Participants (n=551) wore the Actiwatch at least seven days and nights continuously. Variables of interest were time in bed (TIB), sleep onset latency, total sleep time, wake after sleep onset, sleep efficiency and get-up time latency. Multivariate analyses were used to investigate factors associated with these sleep parameters. Provisional definitions were drafted to estimate the prevalence of sleep problems. Mean TIB was 630 min. Longer TIB was independently associated with higher age, more severe level of ID, living at a central facility, wheelchair dependence, female gender and depressive symptoms (adjusted R(2)=.358, F-change=8.302, p<.001). The prevalence of sleep problems was 23.9% settling problem, 63.1% night waking problem, 20.9% short sleep time, 9.3% early waking problem. 72% of the participants had at least one problem, 12.3% had three or more sleep problems. Older adults with ID lie in bed very long, and the prevalence of sleep problems is high. Further research should focus on causality of the relationships found in this study, and effects of sleep problems on health and well-being in this population.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2013 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2013.04.012