C-30 The Relationships Between Phonemic and Semantic Fluency and Sleep Duration in Older Adults

Abstract

Abstract Objective Sleep deprivation through experimental sleep restriction negatively impacts performance on fluency measures, with stronger effects for phonemic fluency than semantic fluency. However, the relationship between naturalistic short sleep and fluency performance has not yet been examined in older adults. We compared older adults who reported long and short average sleep duration on semantic and phonemic fluency tasks. Method 83 community-dwelling adults (M = 68.18 years old, SD = 9.08; 71.1% female) participated in a larger study examining sleep quality and cognition. As part of the large battery of sleep, health, and neuropsychological measures, current analyses focused on phonemic fluency (letters C,F,L) and the Semantic Fluency subtest of the Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status. Sleep duration was based on self-report of the average number of hours they sleep per night. Covariates included age and self-reported levels of arousal at the time of testing. Short ( < 7 hours of sleep) and long (≥ 7 hours of sleep) sleepers did not differ in gender, p = .069, but did in age, p = .007, with short sleepers being older than long sleepers. Short sleepers also reported higher arousal at time of testing, p = .017. Results After controlling for age and current arousal, short sleepers had lower phonemic fluency scores than did long sleepers, p = .012. However, there was no difference between short and long sleepers on semantic fluency after accounting for the same covariates, p = .849. Conclusion These results replicate and extend previous findings of sleep deprivation impacting phonemic fluency and not semantic fluency, but for older adults in more naturalistic conditions of sleep deprivation.