Older people who experience sleepiness during the day may be more likely to develop a syndrome that can lead to dementia, according to a study published Wednesday.

“Our findings underscore the need for screening for sleep problems,” said first study author Dr. Victoire Leroy of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, New York, in a statement. “There is potential for people to get help with sleep problems and prevent cognitive decline later in life.”

Dementia is one of the top 10 leading causes of death in the United States and is becoming more common, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Alzheimer’s – the most common form of dementia – affected 6.9 million Americans in 2022, but is projected to affect nearly 14 million by 2060.

Leroy and team investigated the relationship between sleep problems and the prevalence of motor cognitive risk syndrome (MCR). People with MCR syndrome walk slowly and struggle with memory, but do not have mobility disabilities or diagnosed dementia.

First described in 2013, MCR was not recognized by the medical community for a long time, but is now known to lead to dementia in some people. More specifically, older adults with MCR are thought to have twice as much the likelihood of developing dementia.

The scientists said their research was important because early intervention is needed to effectively prevent dementia.

This study included 445 people over the age of 65 living in residential communities who did not have dementia.

Participants took questionnaires about their sleep habits at the start of the study. They were asked how often they had trouble sleeping because they couldn’t fall asleep within half an hour, because they woke up in the middle of the night, because they felt too hot or cold, and so on. They were also asked if they took medication to help them sleep.

In another part of the questionnaires, they were ask about their daytime sleepinessincluding how often they had difficulty staying awake while driving, eating meals, or engaging in a social activity.

Participants were also asked about any memory problems and whether they struggled to be enthusiastic enough to do things, and the scientists tested their walking speed on a treadmill.

At the start of the study, 42 of the 445 seniors had MCR syndrome. Over the next three years of the study, another 36 developed MCR.

The scientists found that those who were defined as “poor sleepers”—177, or 39.8 percent of the cohort—had a higher risk of developing CKD compared to “good sleepers.”

And they found that people with excessive daytime sleepiness who said they struggled to feel excited about daily tasks because of fatigue were more than three times more likely to develop the syndrome compared to those no sleep related problems.

Participants who had poorer sleep quality, who slept for shorter periods of time, and who reported more frequent daytime sleepiness and related dysfunctions were more likely to develop MCR, the scientists concluded.

This was an observational study, so it cannot be concluded that poor sleep leads to MCR and then dementia – only that a risk association was observed.

“More research needs to be done to look at the relationship between sleep problems and cognitive decline and the role played by motor cognitive risk syndrome,” Leroy said. “We also need studies that elucidate the mechanisms linking these sleep disturbances to motor cognitive risk syndrome and cognitive decline.”

The study was published in the online scientific journal Neurologyof the American Academy of Neurology and was supported by the National Institute on Aging.

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Reference

Leroy, V., Ayers, E., Adhikari, D., Verghese, J. (2024). Association of sleep disturbances with prevalent and incident motor cognitive risk syndrome in community-dwelling older adults, Neurology 103: e210054.