Relationship between Sleep and Dementia

Dementia is a term used to describe declining cognitive ability severe enough to interfere with daily life. In seniors with dementia, their families describe symptoms such as memory loss, difficulty in finding words, difficulty in problem-solving, forgetting the names of familiar places, movies, restaurants, actors, songs, and also some regular situations of confusion, regular depression, and moodiness.

Seniors with dementia are simply not in a good place to live alone, and although family members are able to provide them with love, most families do not have care professionals in the home who can provide care to a person with dementia full time. Dementia, alzheimer’s, and other memory loss problems affecting seniors have been well addressed by assisted living communities with dedicated memory care programs. The range of memory care services includes verbal support, vocational therapy, depression coping, special facilities, and safe environments to reduce anxiety and uneasiness.

To properly understand the importance of professional memory care for seniors, it helps to consider the scale of dementia.

There are many types of dementia, they can be classified as Alzheimer's disease, Vascular dementia, Dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB), Mild cognitive impairment, Parkinson's disease, Frontotemporal dementia, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, and  Huntington's disease. It is a well-known fact that people with Alzheimer’s and other types of dementia suffer from sleep issues such as insomnia, night time wandering and daytime sleepiness. Based on this evidence, researchers have sought to examine the relationship between sleep patterns and the risk of dementia.

A new study in the journal Neurology, the journal for the American Academy of Neurology, finds that people who experience less REM, or dream-stage sleep, may be at higher risk for developing dementia.

REM is the fifth stage of sleep, when the eyes move, the body heats up, breathing and pulse quicken and the mind dreams. This was an observational study in which researchers observed participants for a period of 12 years as part of the famous Framingham Heart study. Sleep cycles were measured for each person, and their cognitive skills were assessed in person at regular intervals. Over the duration of the study, 32 people developed dementia. Of those, 24 were determined to exhibit Alzheimer's disease as well. The study found that people who took longer than the typical 90 minutes to enter REM were more likely to get dementia. They also spent only about 17% of their sleep dreaming, compared to 20% in those who did not develop dementia.

A study that was done consisting of 101 cognitively healthy adults aged above 63 years showed that subjects who had sleep problems were more likely to show Tau pathology. Tau protein is a protein that is responsible for cell stability and cell structure.

With sleep disturbances many studies have found clear evidence that sleep disturbance increase the formation of plaques, breaks the equilibrium of brain cells and increase the risk of Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia. Therefore, it is very important that proper sleep is maintained from the younger age. Older adults should maintain a strict sleeping schedule, it is best to see your doctor if you have sleep disturbances and sleep issues. If you sleep over 9 hours a day and yet wake up feeling like you are not rested it is best to see a therapist.  

Professional Memory Care Can Help Get Symtpoms Under Control

This analysis of dementia and sleep relates to the long term relationship between sleep and dementia. But for seniors who have already developed some form of memory loss, receiving memory care can help to slow the progression of their symptoms and reduce the after effects of memory loss. Modern memory care programs like Club Melrose and The Cottages in Los Angeles provide a range of activities and exercises designed to help seniors control their memory loss and manage their symptoms in a comfortable, like-home environment. If you have a family member experiencing memory loss, please contact us to discuss their symptoms, or tour our community for more information about our memory care program.

References:

Brier, M., Gordon, B., Friedrichsen, K., McCarthy, J., Stern, A., & Christensen, J. et al. (2017). Tau and A  imaging, CSF measures, and cognition in Alzheimers disease. Retrieved 10 October 2017, from

Pase, M., Himali, J., Grima, N., Beiser, A., Satizabal, C., & Aparicio, H. et al. (2017). Sleep architecture and the risk of incident dementia in the community. Retrieved 8 October 2017, from