Sleep
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To date, conflicting observations have been made regarding ethnic differences in sleep patterns. Plausibly, differing sampling strategies and disparity in the cohorts investigated might help explain discrepant findings. To our knowledge population-based studies investigating ethnic differences in sleep complaints have not addressed within-group ethnic heterogeneity, although within-group health disparities have been documented. ⋯ As expected several health risk factors were predictive of sleep disturbance among urban community-dwelling older adults, but ethnicity was the most significant predictor. The present data suggest both between-group and within-group ethnic differences in sleep complaints. Understanding of demographic and cultural differences between African Americans and European Americans may be critical in interpreting subjective health-related data.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Clinical Trial
Acute cardiovascular responses to arousal from non-REM sleep during normoxia and hypoxia.
There is uncertainty concerning the relative contribution of arousal, chemoreceptor stimulation, and their potentially interactive effects, to the acute cardiovascular changes observed during sleep in patients with sleep-disordered breathing. The purpose of this study was to compare cardiovascular responses (heart rate, skin blood flow, and pulse transit time, a non-invasive measure of arterial wall stiffness) to auditory induced arousal from stage 2 sleep under conditions of normoxia and overnight mild hypoxia. ⋯ We conclude that while mild hypoxia stimulates autonomic activity it does not augment the cardiovascular response to arousal from stage 2 sleep in normal subjects.
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The Tucson Children's Assessment of Sleep Apnea study (TuCASA) is designed to investigate the prevalence and correlates of objectively measured sleep-disordered breathing in pre-adolescent children. This paper documents the methods and feasibility of attaining quality unattended polysomnograms in the first 162 TuCASA children recruited. ⋯ The high quality of data collected in TuCASA demonstrates that multi-channel polysomnography data can be successfully obtained in children aged 5-12 years in an unattended setting under a research protocol.