Summary: People who have trouble falling asleep within 30 minutes and those who use sleeping pills are at increased risk of developing dementia as they age, a new study finds. However, those who have difficulty falling back to sleep after waking up during the night are less likely to develop dementia.
Source: Elsevier
Adding to the growing body of evidence on sleep disturbance and cognitive impairment, new research finds significant links between three measures of sleep disturbance and the risk of developing dementia over a 10-year period.
The results, reported in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, published by Elsevier, links sleep onset insomnia (difficulty falling asleep within 30 minutes) and the use of sleeping pills with a higher risk of developing dementia.
Investigators also found that people who reported having sleep maintenance insomnia (difficulty falling back to sleep after waking up) were less likely to develop dementia during the study.
“We expected that sleep initiation insomnia and sleeping pill use would increase the risk of dementia, but we were surprised to find that sleep maintenance insomnia reduced the risk of dementia,” said explained lead researcher Roger Wong, PhD, MPH, MSW, assistant professor in the Department of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, SUNY Upstate Medical University, Syracuse, NY, USA.
“The motivation behind this research was sparked on a personal level. My father has suffered from chronic sleep disorders since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and I was worried about how it would affect his cognition in the future. After reading the existing literature, I was surprised to see mixed results on the relationship between sleep and dementia, so I decided to investigate this topic.
This research is novel because it is the first to examine how measures of long-term sleep disturbance are associated with dementia risk using a nationally representative sample of older American adults. Previous research has linked REM sleep behavior, sleep deprivation (less than five hours of sleep), and short-acting benzodiazepine use to cognitive decline. Their results for sleep maintenance insomnia support other recent studies using smaller, separate data samples.
This study used 10 annual waves (2011-2020) of prospective data from the National Health and Aging Trends Study (NHATS), a longitudinal panel study that surveys a nationally representative sample of Medicare beneficiaries aged 65 and older in UNITED STATES. This study only included people without dementia at baseline in 2011.
There is no cure for dementia and recent pharmaceutical approaches to treating dementia have had limited success, highlighting the importance of preventive approaches to dementia.
“By focusing on variations in sleep disturbances, our findings may help shed light on lifestyle changes that may reduce dementia risk,” explained co-investigator Margaret Anne Lovier, MPH, Department of Public Health and of Preventive Medicine, SUNY Upstate Medical University, Syracuse, NY, USA.
Although the mechanism of decreased dementia risk in people with sleep maintenance insomnia is still unknown, researchers hypothesize that greater engagement in activities that preserve or increase cognitive reserve may thereby reduce the risk of dementia.
Recent data indicate that the prevalence of sleep disorders is higher in the elderly than in other age groups. This could be attributed to a variety of factors, including anxiety over the COVID-19 pandemic or warmer nights due to climate change.
“Older adults lose sleep due to a wide variety of problems. Further research is needed to better understand its causes and manifestations and limit long-term consequences,” Dr. Wong added.
“Our results underscore the importance of considering a history of sleep disturbance when assessing the risk profile for dementia in older adults. Future research is needed to examine other measures of sleep disturbance in the using a national longitudinal sample, whether these sleep dementia findings hold true for specific dementia subtypes and how certain sociodemographic characteristics may interact with sleep disturbance to influence dementia risk.
About this dementia and sleep research news
Author: Eileen Leahy
Source: Elsevier
Contact: Eileen Leahy – Elsevier
Picture: Image is in public domain
See also
Original research: Free access.
“Sleep disturbances and risk of dementia in older adults: results from 10 years of national prospective data in the United States” by Roger Wong et al. American Journal of Preventive Medicine
Abstract
Sleep disturbance and dementia risk in older adults: results from 10 years of national prospective data in the United States
Introduction
Previous research has identified a link between sleep disturbance and cognitive impairment; however, no study has examined this relationship using a national sample from the United States. This study examines how several longitudinal measures of sleep disturbance (sleep initiation insomnia, sleep maintenance insomnia, use of sleeping pills) are associated with dementia risk.
Methods
Ten annual waves (2011-2020) of prospective cohort data from a representative US sample of adults aged ≥65 years were analyzed from the National Health and Aging Trends Study. Sleep disturbances were converted to a longitudinal score and measured as sleep initiation insomnia (difficulty falling asleep within 30 minutes), sleep maintenance insomnia (difficulty falling asleep after waking up early ) and the use of sleeping pills (taking medication to help sleep). Cox regression models analyzed time to dementia diagnosis for a sample of 6,284 respondents.
Results
In the unadjusted model, sleep onset insomnia was significantly associated with a 51% increased risk of dementia (relative risk = 1.51, 95% CI = 1.19, 1.90). Adjusted for sociodemographic data, the use of sleeping pills was significantly associated with a 30% increased risk of dementia (adjusted relative risk = 1.30, 95% CI = 1.08 to 1.56). Adjusted for sociodemographic and health data, sleep maintenance insomnia was significantly associated with a 40% decreased risk of dementia (adjusted relative risk = 0.60, 95% CI = 0.46, 0 ,77).
conclusion
These results suggest that sleep onset insomnia and the use of sleeping pills may increase the risk of dementia. Based on current evidence, sleep disturbance should be considered when assessing dementia risk profile. Future research is needed to examine other measures of sleep disturbance and to explore mechanisms of decreased risk of dementia in older adults with sleep maintenance insomnia.