ADVERTISEMENT
Excessive Daytime Napping Linked With Increased Risk of Alzheimer Dementia
Excessive daytime napping may elevate the risk of Alzheimer dementia and a diagnosis of Alzheimer dementia may speed up the increase in daytime napping during aging, according to a cohort study recently published in Alzheimer’s and Dementia.
“Our results not only suggest that excessive daytime napping may signal an elevated risk of Alzheimer’s dementia, but they also show that faster yearly increase in daytime napping may be a sign of deteriorating or unfavored clinical progression of the disease. Our study calls for a closer attention to 24-hour sleep patterns—not only nighttime sleep but also daytime sleep—for health monitoring in older adults,” said lead author Peng Li, PhD, of the Medical Biodynamics Program in the Brigham’s Division of Sleep and Circadian Disorders, in a press release.
Using data from 1401 participants of the Rush Memory and Aging Project (MAP), researchers from Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, analyzed the longitudinal relationship between daytime napping and cognitive aging during or up to 14-year follow-up. Participants' average age was over 81 years, provided Actical (a watch-like monitoring device), and wore the device on their non-dominant wrist for 14 days. Researchers used a previously validated sleep scoring algorithm to identify sleep episodes, then calculated nap duration and frequency.
RELATED >> Dementia Cases Projected to Top 152 Million Globally by 2050, US Cases Could Double
Alzheimer dementia accelerates increased napping by more than doubling the annual increases in nap duration and frequency compared with cognitively normal older adults. "Interestingly, more excessive (longer or more frequent) daytime napping was correlated with worse cognition a year later, and conversely, worse cognition was correlated with more excessive naps a year later," researchers wrote in the study.
The annual increases in napping duration and frequency accelerating as the disease progressed was described by the authors as a “vicious cycle.”
“Daytime sleep behaviors of older adults are oftentimes ignored, and a consensus for daytime napping in clinical practice and health care is still lacking...Our hope is to draw more attention to daytime sleep patterns and the importance of patients noting if their sleep schedule is changing over time” Dr Li stated.
Researchers noted that while actigraphy has been validated and widely used in sleep field studies, polysomnography is the “gold standard” for sleep scoring. They also stated future research should test the impacts of direct intervention in daytime napping and lowering the risk of Alzheimer dementia or cognitive decline.
References
Researchers find a ‘vicious cycle’ between excessive daytime napping and Alzheimer’s dementia. News release. EurekAlert!. March 17, 2022. Accessed April 27, 2022.
