A study by an internist at Louisiana State University Medical School has discredited a belief that older persons need less sleep than their younger friends.
Dr. Philip M. Tiller Jr.'s deep look into sleep habits and illness shows generally that the more sleep elderly persons get, the less signs they show of ''functional illness"-—fatigue, apprehension, tension and physical discomfort.
The report by Dr. Tiller, a member of the internal medicine faculty at'LSU, was published in the July issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine.
He found that a group of elderly persons with moderate to severe symptoms of functional illness, and who slept less than seven hours a night were helped by a prescription for more rest and sleep.
These patients, he said, have no symptoms of a particular illness. Instead, they express a general and chronic physical discomfort which is alleviated by a longer period of sleep.
Dr. Tiller worked with mentally alert and physically active office patients aged 60 and over. None had symptoms of organic disease.
He said results of his studiei I indicated that fatigue is a short range result of lack of sleep while tension is due to a "long standing deficit of rest, sleep or both."
The LSU internist warns i would be dangerous to consider decreased sleep or rest or both a sole or even a primary causi of discomfort in many of the patients.
But he said ' 'persistent symp tomatic relief consistently oc curred only when the daily sleep was eight hours or mo
