A new study from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine has found a link between poor quality of sleep and cognitive decline in older men over three to four years.
The results reveal higher levels of fragmented sleep and lower efficiency of sleep were connected to a 40 to 50 percent in the chance of significant decline in executive function, according to redOrbit. This has the same effect as an increase in age by five years.
The study authors said executive function is the ability to make and plan decisions, correct errors, and think abstractly, Nature World News reported.
"It was the quality of sleep that predicted future cognitive decline in this study, not the quantity," said Terri Blackwell, lead author and statistician at the California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute. "With the rate of cognitive impairment increasing and the high prevalence of sleep problems in the elderly, it is important to determine prospective associations with sleep and cognitive decline."
Researchers collected data from over 2,800 community-dwelling older men from six clinical centers in the U.S. The mean age of the participants was 76. Each participant used a wrist actigraph to provide five nights on average of sleep data. The results were adjusted for factors including comorbidities, depressive symptoms and use of medication, University Herald reported.
"This study provides an important reminder that healthy sleep involves both the quantity and quality of sleep," said Dr. M. Safwan Badr, researcher and president of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. "As one of the pillars of a healthy lifestyle, sleep is essential for optimal cognitive functioning."
The results were published recently in the journal Sleep.
The authors said the underlying processes that connect cognitive decline with a lack of good sleep have yet to be determined, redOrbit reported. They also said that more research is needed to find out if these associations still exist after a longer follow-up period.
