Sleep quality and sleepiness repercussion on cognitive impairment in community-dwelling older men and women

Introduction Ederly have recognized sleep disturbances. Chronically disrupted sleep has negative consequences such as deficits in attention, alertness, vigilance and memory. This study investigates whether poor sleep quality and sleepiness are associated with cognitive impairment. Materials and methods The sample comprises 200 community-dwelling older adults with a mean age of 76.61 ± 8.665 . Participants were recruited in Granada, Spain. All subjects had a Mini-Mental score over than 24 to be included in the study. Data were obtained from the participants during two in-home interviews separated 24. Sleep quality was measured by the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) and daytime sleepiness was assessed with Epworth sleepiness score (ESS). Cognitive impairment was evaluated with Trailmaking Test (TMT), memory alteration test (MAT) and clock drawing test (CDT). All the subjects were grouped according to their punctuations into three groups: Group 1 included participants without diurnal sleepiness \( ESS 6 \) and good Sleep quality (PSQI \( PSQI ⩾ 6 \) and Group 3 the participants with scores concerning bad sleep quality \( PSQI ⩾ 6 \) and daytime sleepiness \( ESS ⩾ 6 \) . Differences between groups were analyzed using ANOVA test. Results Lower results on TMT were significantly ( p p 8.9 ± 1.21 vs 8.7 ± 1.77 vs 8.4 ± 2.27 , respectively). Conclusion Sleep quality in elders should receive particular attention by clinicians regarding to the relationship between poor sleep quality and 0cognitive decline. Further studies should examine whether the poor sleep quality preceding cognitive decline is the consequence of particular sleep disorders and/or an underlying neurodegenerative disorder.