- Sleep disruptions – waking up and then going back to sleep during the night – may contribute to memory and cognitive problems.
- The duration of sleep was not considered in the study.
- Researchers reported that cognitive issues showed up 10 years after the end of the study.
People who experience disrupted sleep in their 30s and 40s are more likely to have memory and cognitive problems later in life, according to a study published in Neurology, the journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
Researchers looked at the sleep patterns of 526 people who were followed for 11 years.
To calculate averages, the participants wore a wrist monitor for three consecutive days, one year apart. They also reported bedtimes and wake times in a sleep diary.
In addition, the partcipants completed a sleep quality survey, receiving a score ranging from 0 to 21, with higher scores indicating poorer sleep quality.
The scientists also recorded how long each person slept each night.
Participants also completed a series of memory and thinking tests.
The study included 526 participants with an average age of 40 at baseline who were followed for 11 years. Of these, 239 people, or 46%, reported poor sleep, which was defined as having a sleep score of greater than 5.
Researchers also looked at:
- Sleep fragmentation, repetitive short interruptions of sleep
- The percentage of time spent moving
- The percentage of time not moving for one minute or less
The scientists added the two percentages to determine an average sleep fragmentation score. Overall, the participants had an average sleep fragmentation score of 19%. The researchers then grouped the participants based on their scores.
The researchers reported that of the 175 participants with the most disrupted sleep, 44 had poor cognitive performance 10 years after the study ended, compared to 10 of the 176 with the least disruptive…
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