Elderly women suffering from sleep apnea could be at higher risk of developing memory problems and dementia, warn researchers in a new study. Women with breathing problems during sleep were fifty percent more prone to develop cognitive impairment in comparison to women without sleeping problem. Sleep apnea is a frequent interruption to breathing during sleep.
In a study carried out by team led by Dr Kristine Yaffe from the University of California, San Francisco, involving three hundred women aged eighty-two years, who were without dementia. They were given medical test for breathing disorders during sleep, which calculated the number of times their breathing was interrupted or ceased briefly.
It also measured the levels of oxygen deprivation in the brain. Just over a third of the women had sleep apnea that is particularly common in older and overweight people. After the follow up of more than four years, nearly thirty-six percent of women developed mild cognitive impairment.
About forty-five percent of women with prevailing sleep apnea also developed mild cognitive impairment or dementia in comparison to thirty-one percent of those without sleep-disordered breathing. The analysis of statistics indicated that presence sleep apnea was linked to increased chances of consequent mild cognitive impairment or dementia. They also found that two measures of hypoxia were linke to upper prevalence of mild cognitive impairment.
When they took aspects such as race, weight, other diseases and medications into consideration, they found women with sleep apnea were almost twice as likely to test positive for cognitive impairment or dementia. Sleep apnea has also been associated with host of other health problems, including high blood pressure and cholesterol.
The researchers pointed to poor blood flow to the brain during sleep as potential cause in cognitive problems down the line. The increased risk for cognitive impairment linked to sleep apnea opens a new way for additional study on the risk for development of mild cognitive impairment or dementia and exploration of preventive strategies that target sleep quality including sleep-disordered breathing, stated Dr Yaffe.
This is particularly significant as effective treatments for sleep-disordered breathing exist. The finding of the study was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Certainly, when the authors examined the specific aspects that went into a diagnosis of sleep apnea, they found that the lack of steady oxygen overnight was related to thinking and memory problems.
This large study builds on earlier work shows that older people who have breathing disorders during sleep have an increased risk of dementia. It also supports the theory that this is due to less oxygen reaching the brain while the person is asleep, explained Dr Anne Corbett, research manager from the Alzheimer’s Society.