Abstract:
The purpose of this descriptive research were to study the sleep quality in older persons with Alzheimers disease and to study the relationships between sleep quality and intrinsic factors; cognitive deficits, medical conditions, behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia, and extrinsic factors; medication, psychosocial activity, environmental factors and sleep quality in old persons with Alzheimers disease. Participants were 120 paired of family caregivers and older persons with Alzheimers disease from Memory and Psychiatric and Geriatric clinic, and were selected using multi-stage random sampling technique. Research instrument were demographic questionnaires, Mini-Mental State Examination-Thai version (MMSE-T), Behavioral Pathology in Alzheimers disease Rating Scale (Behave-AD), social activity, environment factor, and the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) which were tested for content validity and reliability. The reliabilities of Behave-AD, social activity, environment factor, and PSQI were .80, .82, .74 and .80 respectively. Data were analyzed including Chi-square test and Pearsons Product Moment Correlation Coefficient. Major findings were as follow: 1. 67.50 % of older persons with Alzheimers disease had poor sleep quality ( = 7.43, SD = 3.4). 2. Intrinsic factors were cognitive deficits (r = .305), behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia (r = .382) and medical conditions (c =.357) had significantly correlated with sleep quality in older persons with Alzheimers disease at the level of .05 3. Extrinsic factors were medication (c =.281, .362), psychosocial activity (r = .387), and environmental factors (r = .521) had significantly correlated with sleep quality in older persons with Alzheimers disease at the level of .05