Sleep Quality Linked With Cognition Across Five Cohorts

Your doctor and hospital should have a sleep protocol, otherwise they are contributing to your risk of dementia. Nurses would pass out sleeping pills like candy at 10pm. Does using them count as real sleep?  I got woken up almost every morning by the blood vampires coming for either me or my roommates at 7am.  Do they now know about needleless blood draws, only out since May 2016? Needle free blood draws or microneedles? I had mild sleep apnea but can't use a CPAP, don't know if I still have it, don't have a partner to tell me about it.

1. Sleep Recruits Multiple Brain Areas to Help Consolidate Motor Learning

2. Brain may flush out toxins during sleep

3.Sleep to protect your brain

4. Sleeping too much or too little linked to chronic diseases

5. Lost Sleep Leads to Lost Neurons

6. Sleeping more than 8 hours is a risk factor for cognitive impairment in over 65s 
Like maybe you need a stroke protocol for sleep?
How Bad Is Sleep Problems for Hospital Patients?

 The latest here:

Sleep Quality Linked With Cognition Across Five Cohorts

Inaugural Sleep and Dementia Consortium analysis points to associations with sleep apnea

by Judy George, Deputy Managing Editor, MedPage Today July 19, 2023

AMSTERDAM -- Better sleep consolidation and the absence of sleep apnea were associated with better global cognition over 5 years, a pooled analysis of sleep studies in nearly 6,000 adults showed.

Across five cohorts, higher sleep maintenance efficiency (pooled β per 1% increase 0.08, P<0.01) and lower wake after sleep onset (pooled β per 1-min increase -0.07, P=0.02) were associated with better global cognition, reported Matthew Pase, PhD, of Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference.opens in a new tab or window Results were also published in JAMA Network Openopens in a new tab or window.

An apnea-hypopnea index (AHI) score of 5 or more, indicating mild to severe obstructive sleep apnea, was associated with poorer global cognition (pooled β -0.06, P=0.01) compared with an AHI less than 5. Comparable results were found for moderate to severe apnea. Sleep stage percentages were not associated with global cognition across cohorts.

Prior research has shown a bidirectional relationshipopens in a new tab or window between dementia and sleep that may span decades.

"Most of our knowledge on sleep, cognition, and dementia relationships comes from studies using subjective sleep or analysis of activity patterns using actigraphy," Pase said. "We used in-home, gold-standard sleep studies to clarify the aspects of sleep that are most strongly related to cognitive function in almost 6,000 persons."

"The significance of mild asymptomatic sleep apnea has previously been unclear as studies tend to examine participants who have presented with sleep complaints," Pase pointed out. "Since participants in this community-based study did not present with any specific sleep complaints, the association between even mild obstructive sleep apnea and poorer cognition is an important observation."

"Approximately half our sample had evidence of at least mild obstructive sleep apnea," he added. "Treatment trials are needed to determine whether sleep treatment can mitigate cognitive decline."

Pace and colleagues curated data from the newly created Sleep and Dementia Consortium, incorporating information from five U.S. population-based cohorts: the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities study, the Cardiovascular Health Study, the Framingham Heart Study, the Osteoporotic Fractures in Men Study, and the Study of Osteoporotic Fractures.

The inaugural analysis included 5,946 participants with no history of stroke or dementia who underwent overnight, home-based type II polysomnography (PSG) and neuropsychological assessments over 5 years of follow-up. Results were adjusted for demographic variables, time between PSG and neuropsychological testing, BMI, antidepressant use, and sedative use.

"The use of five pooled independent community cohorts enabled us to draw robust conclusions, as compared to any single study alone," Pase said.

Across cohorts, 31.5% of participants were women, and mean ages ranged from 58 to 89 at the time of PSG. The median wake after sleep onset time ranged from 44 to 101 minutes, and the prevalence of moderate to severe apnea ranged from 17% to 29%.

The percentage of people with at least mild obstructive sleep apnea ranged from 45% to 64%, reflecting differences in age and sex of the cohorts, Pase noted.

Pooled estimates showed short total sleep time was associated with poorer attention and processing speed. Pooled effects did not show overall associations between sleep and learning and memory or visuospatial abilities.

A limitation of the study was that sleep and cognition were assessed at one time point. Given that associations between sleep and brain health are likely bidirectional, longer follow-ups may be needed to unravel temporal associations between poor sleep and cognitive impairment, Pase noted.

"Having established the Sleep and Dementia Consortium, we now have a resource to examine other important questions, including which aspects of sleep are most strongly related to the risk of dementia up to 20 years in the future," he said.

• Judy George covers neurology and neuroscience news for MedPage Today, writing about brain aging, Alzheimer’s, dementia, MS, rare diseases, epilepsy, autism, headache, stroke, Parkinson’s, ALS, concussion, CTE, sleep, pain, and more. Follow

Disclosures

The Sleep and Dementia Consortium is funded by a grant from the National Institute on Aging.

Pase reported no disclosures.

Co-authors reported relationships with Biogen, Eisai, National Institutes of Health, Jazz Pharmaceuticals, Eli Lilly, and Apnimed.

Primary Source

JAMA Network Open

Source Reference: opens in a new tab or windowPase MP, et al "Sleep architecture, obstructive sleep apnea, and cognitive function in adults" JAMA Netw Open 2023; DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.25152.