Difficulty in Falling Asleep Linked to Increased Risk of Developing Dementia

Highlights:

Dementia is a term used to describe a group of symptoms affecting memory, thinking, and social abilities severely enough to interfere with your daily life
A new study suggests that people who have trouble falling asleep within 30 minutes and individuals who use sleep medications are at increased risk of developing dementia
Conversely, those who have difficulty falling back asleep after they woke up during the night are less likely to develop dementia

Sleep disturbances are a common issue for people with dementia. A recent study finds significant links between three measures of sleep disturbance and the risk for developing dementia over a 10-year period.

The findings of the study link sleep-initiation insomnia, which is trouble falling asleep within 30 minutes, and sleep medication use with a higher likelihood of developing dementia.

Researchers also discovered that people who reported having sleep-maintenance insomnia, which is trouble falling back to sleep after waking, were less likely to develop dementia over the course of the study. The study was published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

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‘A recent study says that individuals who use sleeping pills or have a hard time falling asleep within 30 minutes may have an increased risk of developing dementia.’

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Surprising Findings Linking Sleep and Dementia

“We expected sleep-initiation insomnia and sleep medication usage to increase dementia risk, but we were surprised to find sleep-maintenance insomnia decreased dementia risk,” explained lead investigator Roger Wong, Ph.D., MPH, MSW, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, SUNY Upstate Medical University, Syracuse, NY, USA. “The motivation behind this research was prompted on a personal level. My father has been experiencing chronic sleep disturbances since the COVID-19 pandemic began, and I was concerned about how this would affect his cognition in the future. After reading the existing literature, I was surprised to see mixed findings on the sleep-dementia relationship, so I decided to investigate this topic.”

This research is novel because it is the first to examine how long-term sleep disturbance measures are associated with dementia risk using a nationally representative US older adult sample. Previous research has associated REM sleep behavior, sleep deprivation, which is less than five hours of sleep, and the use of short-acting benzodiazepines with cognitive decline. Their results for sleep-maintenance insomnia support other recent studies using smaller, separate data samples.

The 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 within the USA. This study included only people who were dementia-free at baseline in 2011.

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Prevention is the Cure for Dementia

So far, there is no cure for dementia, and recent medicinal approaches to treat dementia have had limited success. Therefore, finding ways to prevent dementia is of utmost importance. “By focusing on the variations in sleep disturbances, our findings can help inform lifestyle changes that can reduce dementia risk,” explained co-author Margaret Anne Lovier, MPH, Department of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, SUNY Upstate Medical University, Syracuse, NY, USA.

While the mechanism for decreased dementia risk among those with sleep-maintenance insomnia is still not clear, the investigators theorize that greater engagement in activities that preserve or increase cognitive reserve may thereby decrease dementia risk.

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Older Adults are Losing Their Sleep

Recent evidence indicates there is a higher prevalence of sleep disturbances among older adults than among other age groups. This could be attributed to a variety of factors including anxiety about the COVID-19 pandemic or warmer nights as a consequence of climate change.

“Older adults are losing sleep over a wide variety of concerns. More research is needed to better understand its causes and manifestations and limit the long-term consequences,” added Dr. Wong. “Our findings highlight the importance of considering sleep disturbance history when assessing the dementia risk profile for older adults. Future research is needed to examine other sleep disturbance measures 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 disturbances to influence dementia risk.”

Reference:

Sleep Disturbances and Dementia Risk in Older Adults: Findings From 10 Years of National U.S. Prospective Data - (https://www.ajpmonline.org/article/S0749-3797(23)00009-0/fulltext)

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