Some aspects of sleep disturbance in coronary patients.

Of 42 coronary care patients studied during 10 hr. of polygraphically recorded sleep, 28 were in an open-ward coronary care unit and 14 were in a semi-private telemetry unit. The observed sleep disturbances were not a function of type of unit, length of hospitalization, sex, or medications. Sleep was significantly less fragmented in those patients judged less severe in pathology. These results indicate that alterations in normal sleep patterns occur routinely within coronary care environments, even in the absence of disturbing environmental stimuli and suggest that a closer analysis be made of sleep in these settings in light of the known relationships between sleep and cardiac function.