US study links poor sleep to reduced memory performance in seniors
Reduced sleep quality has been tied to poor memory optimisation for young adults – a new study confirms this adverse effect on older adults as well, particularly on their ability to recall information about past events. This is further compounded by declining sleep quality from the aging process.
The pilot study was led by Associate Professor Audrey Duarte from Georgia Institute of Technology’s (Georgia Tech) School of Psychology, US, who recruited some 50 adults from the area and gave them wrist accelerometers to measure sleep duration and quality, for one week. The sleep measurements were done at home, thus ensuring a more realistic sleep account over testing done in sleep labs.
According to Duarte, the night-to-night variability corresponding weak memory performance in the older study participants was evident on their performance in tests aimed at evaluating episodic memory.This was after participants underwent a memory test for word recall, measured through electroencephalography (EEG) brain wave activity – unsurprisingly, better performance correlated with better sleep in most of the older adults. As memory consolidation and strengthening happens during sleep, Duarte has advised that regular sleep at any age is important for the best cognitive performance.
In addition to significant variation among the age groups,the poor sleep-poor memory relationship also extended across racial differences, including both older and younger African-Americans. High stress levels and tensions in those participants led to greater sleep fragmentation.
After this, the researchers hope to study the relationship between sleep and memory in other underrepresented minorities and explore whether variations in sleep patterns could predict the likelihood of experiencing memory-related diseases, such as Alzheimer’s.
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