Audrey - Interview 39

Age at interview: 79

Brief Outline: Audrey feels her sleep has deteriorated a lot in the last ten years. She rarely gets more than a few hours a night, and a really good night would be when Audrey sleeps for 4-5 hours. She would really like to sleep longer.

Background: Married, two children, Retired Office Administrator

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Audrey moved to their current home about ten years ago. She likes to keep active and belongs to several local groups. In particular Audrey has found a lot of benefit from attending a group called S.M.I.L.E., So Much Improvement with a Little Exercise, and does feel she sleeps a bit better after going to these gentle exercise sessions.

 

Audrey feels her main sleeping problem is getting to sleep and often finds she tosses and turns for quite some time. She tries clearing her mind and imagining going through a long dark tunnel, but finds it very difficult to get to sleep. Occasionally, when she wakes up in the night and can’t get back to sleep, Audrey will come downstairs and read the whole newspaper before going back to bed and trying to sleep again.

 

Sometimes Audrey finds she sleeps better on holiday than at home and wonders if this might be because she has been busier during the day. Audrey also finds that she sometimes dozes off whilst watching the news on the television after lunch. Audrey believes the deterioration in her sleep is largely because she is getting older, but also because she has quite a lot of pain in her legs and back.

Audrey believes sleep is very important and would love to be able to go to bed and sleep well.

So in looking at that healthy lifestyle and healthy eating do you think that sleep is important as well?

 

Yes. I think I feel I’d be, it’d be wonderful if I could have a say six hour, go to bed and know I was going to sleep … and then wake up, even quite early, but that would be lovely just to go to sleep because often I’ve been dying to go bed I’m so tired. I go to bed and I’ve tried a warm bath.

 

Milky drinks have you tried those?

 

No. No. I haven’t tried milky drinks. We do have milky drinks but not that often. Do we and it would be earlier on.

 

So sleeps important to you and a perfect night, well you’d be pleased to have six hours going to sleep straight away?

 

Oh yes.

 

What would be perfect? If I could say to you tonight you are going to have a perfect night’s sleep and I hope you do, what would that be?

 

Well if I could sleep from twelve till six that would be wonderful or even 11 to 5.  

Audrey finds that all aspects of her sleep have changed as she has got older, but for her the worst part is taking ages to get to sleep.

Taking less time to go to sleep. Sometimes it takes ages and ages before I can get off to sleep.

 

Is that the part of your sleep that bothers you the most?

 

I’m just trying to think. It all bothers me, because I would love to, I feel it would be so good if I could go to bed, sleep and wake up at the normal time, that would be absolutely wonderful, but I haven’t done that for years. I used to be all right. I suppose with old age. I don’t know. But I think going to SMILES has helped.

 

Oh it has. Do you mind telling me for the Camera what SMILE is?

 

SMILE means so much improvement for little effort, and it’s specifically designed for older people. And they are very gentle exercises and the main advantage or the main thing about them is that you breathe properly and breathing is the root of all ailments. Well not all but a lot of illness and things like that and if you breathe properly I suppose it's getting more oxygen around your system, and that I think is one of the main things and also for posture and things like that.

Audrey tells how her mother, who lived in a flat on her own, would phone in the middle of the night to ask what the time was.

Audrey' And she was quite, not easy shall we put it that way. Then when she was in her flat as she got older, she was turned 90 when she died and she’d had lots of falls and breaks and illnesses. So we were back and forth, but I never actually nursed her. Only over Christmas when she had a urine infection and things like that. But I was always involved and she lived in [town] so I could drive, and she wouldn’t hesitate to have me go out if she wanted anything.

 

And we spent hours in hospitals, taking her and visiting and that.

 

How long ago is all of this?

 

Audrey' 98 she died. My Father died in 84. And she lived a long time after that.

 

So do you think at that period of time. It must have been worrying for you?

 

Audrey' Yes. It made me worry.

 

Could that influence how you slept then do you think?

 

Audrey' It probably did, I hadn’t thought about that.

 

John' On occasions she would phone here late at night or early in the morning and the best example is where she phoned up and when we woke up and lifted the phone, she said ‘Audrey what time is it’? And Audrey said ‘it’s 2 o’clock in the morning Mother’. And she said, ‘Oh that is the same time as my clock’.

 

Oh so she got disoriented and just phoned up to find out what the time was?

 

Audrey' Yes. She wasn’t with it and she was having an operation in hospital and she died on the operating table and they resuscitated her which was the worst thing because she really wanted to die, she didn’t want the bother and she lived for about three years after that didn’t she. But you know…