Other than a refreshing nap. Conversely, seniors who sleep too much in the afternoon may be more at risk of dementia and neurodegenerative disorders. It emerges from a study, published in the journal Alzheimer’s and Dementia, the Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association, led by scientists from the University of California at San Francisco, Harvard Medical School, and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, who identified an association between more frequent and lasting daytime sleep and an increased risk of dementia . The team, led by Yue Leng, has overturned the view that afternoon naps are a way to compensate for poor night sleep. “We have discovered – Leng reports – that daytime nap is important but is independent of night rest”.
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The research team used watch-like devices to measure the sleep sessions of 1,401 seniors, followed for up to 14 years by the Rush Memory and Aging Project at Chicago’s Rush Alzheimer’s Disease Center. Participants, mean age 81, wore wrist sensors for several days, and underwent annual neuropsychological tests to assess cognition. At the start of the study, the authors report, 75.7 percent of the subjects appeared cognitively healthy, 19.5 percent showed mild cognitive impairment, and 4.1 percent were diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.
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After comparing the data from a distance, the scientists found that people who remained cognitively healthy were associated with an increase in daily naps of about 11 minutes on average. Among those who showed signs of mild cognitive impairment, on the other hand, naps increased by 24 minutes, while following the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease, patients tended to sleep up to 68 minutes more. According to the survey, participants who slept more than an hour during the day were 40 percent more likely to develop neurodegenerative disease than those who rested less.
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“It is plausible to assume that the correlation between excessive daytime naps and increased risk of Alzheimer’s – adds When Hu, of Harvard Medical School – may reflect the effect of the disease in the preclinical stages. Our work shows that daytime rest and the risk of experiencing neurodegenerative disease could drive each other’s changes bi-directionally. “
“We do not yet have sufficient elements to establish a causal relationship – concludes Leng – but it seems that daytime napping could be a sign of premature cognitive aging. For future studies it would be interesting to explore whether altering these routines can influence age-related cognitive decline. “
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