Contents:
- Medical Video: early dementia warning signs
- What is dementia?
- Long sleep is associated with a greater risk of dementia
- Long sleep can be an early symptom of dementia, even before you become easy to forget
Medical Video: early dementia warning signs
Worldwide, there are more than 46 million people suffering from dementia, and the number is expected to increase threefold by 2050. Based on a recent study published in the Journal of the American Academy of Neurology, someone who sleeps long, which is more than 9 hours a day, may experience early signs of dementia. How can it be, huh? Here's the explanation.
What is dementia?
Dementia is a term of a collection of symptoms caused by changes in the brain. Dementia is also often referred to as senility. Symptoms of dementia include memory disorders, difficulty in thinking, difficulty making decisions, language disorders (often losing words), and changes in mood and behavior that can interfere with daily activities.
Dementia is not a disease, but a series of symptoms that can indicate disease. Many diseases can cause dementia, such as Alzheimer's disease, circulatory disorders (strokes), head trauma, Parkinson's disease, and others.
Long sleep is associated with a greater risk of dementia
A study led by Dr. Sudha Seshadri, a neurologist at Boston University, evaluated data on 2,457 men and women with an average age of 72 years. Study participants were asked to provide information in the form of duration of night's sleep each day. Then the expert team observed how many people were affected by dementia in the next ten years.
Overall, those who slept more than nine hours a day had twice the risk of experiencing dementia compared to those who slept for nine hours or less each day. They also report worse thought processes and task completion and have lower brain volumes.
In addition, study participants who slept more than nine hours a day and did not complete high school education had a six times greater risk of experiencing dementia compared with participants who slept less than nine hours. These results indicate that having a higher education can also reduce the risk of dementia.
Because the level of education of a person can be related to one's socio-economic status. Well, economic difficulties can make a person not have access to adequate information and health services. This ultimately makes a person more vulnerable to dementia or senility.
Long sleep can be an early symptom of dementia, even before you become easy to forget
Dr. Rosa Sancho, a researcher in Alzheimer's disease in the United Kingdom, explained that although changes in sleep patterns are common in dementia patients, this study adds evidence to previous studies which stated that changes in sleep patterns, namely long sleep, can be seen far before symptoms easy to forget starts to appear.
Disorders of sleep patterns can arise due to shrinkage (atrophy) of the part of the brain that acts to regulate the human sleep cycle, or can also occur as a result of interference mood which is common in dementia patients.
Changes in the duration of sleep that are realized from the start are useful to help predict people at risk for dementia. The faster the patient is diagnosed with dementia, the more time patients and families can use in planning for the future.
