REM Sleep Tied to Dementia Risk Small prospective study finds possible relationship

Our findings point to REM sleep as a predictor of dementia," Pase said in a statement. Sleep disturbance has long been recognized as being common in dementia, but it's not clear if differences in sleep architecture precede dementia onset, the researchers said. To get a better understanding of the relationship, they studied 321 people from the Framingham Heart Study-Offspring cohort who participated in the Sleep Heart Health Study from 1995 to 1998. Participants were a mean age of 67 when they had sleep assessment, and they were followed for a mean of 12 years. During that time, 32 were diagnosed with dementia, and of those, 24 had Alzheimer's disease. Overall, Pase's group found an association between diminished REM sleep and dementia risk: those who developed dementia spent 17% of their sleep time in REM sleep compared with 20% for those who didn't have dementia. https://www.medpagetoday.com/Neurology/Dementia/67472?xid=NL_breakingnews_2017-08-24&eun=g721819d0r