2019 Volume 45 Issue 3 Pages 125-136
The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of a short-term sleep improvement program for the elderly; the intervention was implemented thrice over 2 weeks. The intervention group included a total of 39 elderly people living on an isolated island; 16 from island A and 23 from island B. The results showed that the frequency of sleep-improving behavior increased, and the severity of sleep disorder decreased; improvements were also observed in subjective experiences of falling asleep, feeling of sleeping deeply, and awareness during the daytime. However, the effect of the program on the severity of sleep disorder may be lesser. In addition, analysis of each remote island showed that the improvement of participants in remote island A was larger than those in remote island B in terms of improvement in sleep disorder and in parts of the subjective evaluation. Therefore, the findings suggest that short-term programs may also serve as effective means of improving sleep among elderly people.
