Older adults with epilepsy exhibited significantly poorer sleep quality compared to controls, with sleep disturbances closely linked to epilepsy-related factors including age of onset, epilepsy duration, and seizure frequency.
Older adults with epilepsy had significantly higher global PSQI scores than controls, indicating worse overall sleep quality.
Nearly half of older adults with epilepsy were classified as poor sleepers, compared to roughly one-fifth of controls.
Older adults with epilepsy showed impairment across multiple PSQI sleep domains compared to controls.
Poor sleepers in the OAE group had worse sleep characteristics compared to poor sleeper controls.
Later age of epilepsy onset was associated with greater sleep disturbances and less sleep medication use.
Longer epilepsy duration was associated with fewer sleep disturbances but more sleep medication use.
Higher seizure frequency was associated with shorter sleep duration in older adults with epilepsy.
This research suggests that older adults living with epilepsy experience significantly worse sleep than their peers without epilepsy. In a study comparing 175 older adults with epilepsy to 700 older adults without epilepsy, nearly half (48.6%) of the epilepsy group had poor sleep quality, compared to only about one in five (19.9%) of those without epilepsy. People with epilepsy took longer to fall asleep, slept for shorter periods, had less efficient sleep, experienced more nighttime disturbances, used more sleep medications, and had more difficulty functioning during the day. The research also found that specific features of a person's epilepsy were linked to their sleep problems. People who developed epilepsy later in life tended to have more sleep disturbances but used fewer sleep medications, while those who had lived with epilepsy for longer had fewer sleep disturbances but used more sleep medications. Additionally, those who had more frequent seizures slept for shorter durations overall. These patterns suggest that the relationship between epilepsy and sleep is complex and changes over the course of the condition. This research suggests that sleep problems are a common and serious issue for older adults with epilepsy, and that clinicians should routinely assess and address sleep quality as part of epilepsy care in this population. Better management of seizures and tailored attention to sleep may help improve the overall health and quality of life of older people living with epilepsy.
Fan Y, Zhou X, Ping H, Chen Y, Zhao Q, Ding D, et al.. (2026). Sleep quality and impact factors in older adults with epilepsy.. Epilepsy & behavior : E&B. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.yebeh.2026.110889