Study: Improving Deep Sleep can Prevent Dementia

According to one study, a 1% loss in deep sleep each year for persons over 60 years old translates into a 27% higher chance of dementia. The study also suggests that improving or maintaining deep sleep, also known as slow-wave sleep, in older years may help prevent dementia.The study, led by Associate Professor Matthew Pase, from the Monash School of Psychological Sciences and the Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health in Melbourne, Australia, and published today in JAMA Neurology, looked at 346 participants, over 60 years of age, enrolled in the Framingham Heart Study who completed two overnight sleep studies in the time periods 1995 to 1998 and 2001 to 2003, with an average of five years between the two studies....