Disturbed sleep not only makes a person feel tired often. A new study has revealed that poor sleep quality can also be a sign of risk for developing dementia in old age.
Recent studies in the United States found that the poor quality of sleep at night associated with preclinical Alzheimer’s symptoms. Scientists from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis studied the sleep patterns of 100 people aged 45 and 80. Volunteers are involved in this research did not have dementia, but half of them is derived from people with Alzheimer’s.
The results showed that those who often wake up five times every hour tend to show a buildup of amyloidal plaques in the brain, than those who did not experience sleep disturbances.
Amyloidal protein plaques is one of the early markers of Alzheimer’s disease a type of dementia that can grab a person’s ability to think, remember and perform simple tasks. Sign of plaque can now be detected by means of brain scans and spinal fluid examination. The presence of amyloidal plaques can be seen several years before patients show symptoms of Alzheimer’s.
“Initially we only take into account the duration, but it seems the quality of sleep is more important in this connection. We initially did not know that Alzheimer’s early stages can lead to poor sleep quality or vice versa. There might be changes in brain activity during sleep that causes fluid amyloidal decreased throughout the night . But we will examine these findings more deeply, “said Dr. Yo-El Ju, assistant professor of neurology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis
In his research, Yo-El Ju who is also member of the American Academy of Neurology, install equipment called the actigraph to measure sleep the volunteers for two weeks. Researchers also measured levels of amyloidal beta-42 in the spinal fluid of volunteers and monitor the increased Pittsburgh Compound B (PIB) for inspection by tomography equipment.
The result, 25 percent of the volunteers showed symptoms of preclinical Alzheimer’s, namely the presence of amyloidal plaques. The study found that people who wake up more than five times per hour are more likely to have amyloidal plaques. Those who sleep “inefficient” is also likely to have amyloidal plaques than those who sleep more efficiently. Not efficient, I mean, time asleep divided by time in bed score less than 85 percent.
