Here’s another reason to maintain good sleep.
A 3-year study of more than 400 elderly people suggests a tie between excessive daytime sleepiness and dementia.
KERA’s Sam Baker discussed this with Dr. Alla Al-Habib, a neurologist with Texas Health Plano and Texas Neurology Consultants.
Baker: Describe excessive daytime sleepiness in this case.
Al-Habib: To basically wake up in the morning not feeling refreshed and you have excessive napping during the daytime. You never feel refreshed and ready to move forward for anything but good.
Baker: Something like that hit anyone at any time, any age.
Al-Habib: Yes, absolutely. It can hit from childhood to adulthood to older individual. But the importance of the study is basically when we are getting older, these can come up to the surface as signs of predementia. And that's where the significance of this comes.
Baker: What is the tie to dementia here?
Al-Habib: Dementia is a collective of symptoms, and fortunately, there are predementia symptoms that we can catch. And if we catch them there early, we can hopefully prevent the dementia from happening or from getting worse. Things like poor sleep quality, poor lifestyle choices, and poor diet - all these can contribute to the dementia risk.
Baker: Now this also has to do with moderate cognitive risk syndrome?
Al-Habib: We believe that there are signs and symptoms that precede dementia, mainly that can affect our walking and motor skills as well as our cognition.
Poor sleep can affect daytime cognition and you will just be so fatigued, tired, sleepy and drowsy during the day. Your walking skills and motor skills can also decline prior to the actual dementia.
Baker: Is this the kind of thing people might be prone to dismiss as just a sign of growing old?
Al-Habib: Absolutely. I hear this in my clinic every day when I ask my patients if they feel refreshed in the morning? And they immediately say, you know, we are retired. We really don't have a lot to do during the day. And we have these older days memory issues related to our age. And then I have to educate them that, you know, dementia and memory are not normal older symptoms. It is a condition. It's a disease. And we have to address this as is.
Baker: Who among the elderly are more at risk for this syndrome?
Al-Habib: People who are obese because that can cause obstructive sleep apnea at night and then affect their daytime wakefulness. People who smoke, and who have chronic conditions like epilepsy, diabetes, and hypertension are also at risk.
Baker: Good sleep hygiene is the key to avoiding this motoric cognitive risk syndrome?
Al-Habib: Absolutely. We always think about adding medications, adding supplements, and we forget about the core problems. Having poor quality of sleep can predispose you to this syndrome as well as progression to a full-blown dementia.
Having sleep hygiene - routine hours for you to go to bed and wake up at the same time, avoiding screen time before going to bed, meditation, avoiding any caffeinated (beverage) or alcohol in the evening time - all these are going to affect the sleep quality and then the daytime cognitive function.
Baker: It seems like there are some lessons for people younger to take from this.
Al-Habib: Right. These symptoms or predementia syndrome can happen years and decades before the real dementia symptoms surface.
So, avoiding those can prevent you from going in that direction, heading toward dementia as a younger individual. When you adapt to new skills or when you adopt healthy sleep hygiene. And that will affect your older time as well. If you grow up, you know, having poor choices and you will end up, you know, living with these choices forever.
Baker: Now, everybody who had problems with sleep didn't develop this particular syndrome, though, correct?
Al-Habib: Absolutely. So it is, though, there is a link that we can see and there are people who are very highly functioning so they can hide these symptoms. I think this is a good warning sign that we should take seriously. But I don't think everyone will head toward dementia.
RESOURCES:
- Excessive daytime sleepiness/dementia study
- Motoric cognitive risk syndrome
- Is it typical for people with dementia to sleep a lot during the day?
- Sleep well — and reduce your risk of dementia and death
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