one dimension poor quality nightDoctors often recommend indulging in power nap In order to recover and hold out until the next evening. But in the elderly, longer naps may be an early sign of this mental illness.
So far, research aimed at determining how naps affect cognition in adults has had mixed results. Some studies seem to indicate that naps are beneficial for cognition in young adults. Others, carried out on ElderlyOn the contrary, they suggest that napping could be associated with cognitive impairment.
However, many of these studies rely solely on self-report data. However, in some cases, this methodology may not be accurate enough: people with cognitive impairment in particular may have difficulty providing reliable information about the duration or frequency of naps.
Like’epidemiology world Studying sleep and neurodegeneration in the elderly, I examined whether changes in napping patterns could be predictive cognitive decline. The results I and my colleagues have shown show that it is normal for naps to increase with age, but excessive elongation can be a sign of cognitive decline.
video : Alzheimer’s disease can be linked to sleep (VO subtitled)
The link between naps and dementia
Sleep disturbances and early naps are known symptoms associated with mild to moderate forms of Alzheimer’s disease, as well as other forms of dementia in the elderly. Souvent, à mesure que la maladie progresse, ces symptômes deviennent plus extrêmes : les patients parviennent de moins en moins à trouver le sommeil lorsqu’ils se couchent, sont plus susceptibles de se réveiller durant la à nuit, et mn som s se clent plus en cl sent During the day.
To examine the link between naps and dementia, my colleagues and I studied a group of 1,401 people with an average age of 81 years. Share these people in project Impulse memory and aging, a longitudinal study designed to analyze cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s disease. For fourteen years, participants wore a device, similar to a wristwatch, intended to track their movement. Periods of prolonged inactivity have been interpreted as naps.
At the start of the study, nearly 75% of patients showed no signs of cognitive decline. Of the other patients, 4% had Alzheimer’s disease and 20% had mild cognitive decline, which is often a precursor of dementia risk.
Over the years, the daily duration of naps increased for all participants, but we saw differences between people with and those without Alzheimer’s. Participants who did not have cognitive impairment nap an average of 11 minutes per year.
In people diagnosed with MCI, this duration more than doubled: nap duration increased an average of 25 minutes per year. Finally, in participants diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, this stretch tripled again, to an additional 68 minutes per year, on average.
In the end, we found that older adults who naps at least once a day, or slept more than an hour during the day, were 40% more likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease than those who didn’t nap daily. Those who took naps did not last more than one hour. These results remained unchanged even after correcting for factors such as daily activities, disease, or take treatment.
A nap and the Alzheimer’s brain
Our study shows that longer naps are a normal part of aging, but only to a certain extent. Our colleagues fromUniversity of California In San Francisco, a mechanism may explain why people with dementia take longer and more frequent naps.
They set out to conduct a post-mortem comparison of the brains of people who died without any cognitive decline with the brains of people with Alzheimer’s disease. The results revealed that in the latter case, three brain regions had fewer neurons (neurons) involved in wakefulness. These neurological changes appear to be related to Presence of tau proteinsigns of Alzheimer’s disease that form when tau protein, which helps stabilize healthy nerve cells, eventually forms clumps that impede communication between neurons.
Although our study does not show that increased naps lead to cognitive decline, it does suggest that longer naps are a possible signal of cognitive decline.accelerated aging. More research will determine whether monitoring the duration of naps can help to better detect the onset of cognitive decline.
This analysis was written by Yue Leng, associate professor of psychiatry at the University of California (San Francisco).
The original article was translated (from English) and published on Conversation.
Declaration of interest
● Yue Leng receives funding from the National Institute on Aging.
“Music guru. Incurable web practitioner. Thinker. Lifelong zombie junkie. Tv buff. Typical organizer. Evil beer scholar.”
More Stories
Scientists have discovered new health risks associated with microplastics
The Japanese probe intact survived a third lunar night
The solar sail was launched into space after being folded into a simple box!