Poor sleep linked to higher stroke risk in elderly

The team found that seniors who had the highest levels of sleep fragmentations, which meant that they tended to wake up an average of seven times throughout the night, were 27 percent more likely to have evidence of hardening in their brain arteries, which can increase their risk of stroke.

Poor sleep quality in elderly persons is associated with more severe arteriosclerosisin the brain as well as a greater burden of oxygen-starved tissue (infarcts) in the brain – both of which can contribute to the risk of strokeand cognitive impairment.

“The forms of brain injury that we observed are important because they may not only contribute to the risk of stroke but also to chronic progressive cognitive and motor impairment”, study author Dr. Andrew Lim, a neurologist and scientist at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Center in Toronto, said in a statement.

Researchers examined brain autopsy findings from participants in the Rush University Memory and Aging Project. All participants had undergone at least one full week of sleep monitoring before death. Twenty-nine percent of them had suffered a stroke, and 61 percent had moderate-to-severe damage to blood vessels in the brain.

A recent study conducted in Canada has revealed that sleep quality is important for the health of senior people.

Moreover, for each additional two arousals during one hour of sleep, researchers reported a 30 per cent increase in the odds that subjects had visible signs of oxygen deprivation in their brain.

He mentioned that sleep fragmentation may disrupt the circulation of blood to the brain; poor circulation of blood to their brain may lead to sleep disruption and may be both can happen.

Individuals who had the most frequent awakening and going back to sleep had 27 percent more hardening of the arteries in the brain.

He adds: “The implication is that if we treat the sleep apnoea, we would then reduce the likelihood of a second stroke; but that remains to be proven”.

The researchers have found an association between poor sleep and brain problems.

Sleep monitoring may potentially be another way to identify old age people who might be at risk of stroke, the findings suggested.

Regardless, he and his colleagues write, these changes in the brain are tied to strokes and worsening problems with thinking and body movements.

“I think the take-home point is that this is another reason why people ought to take care of their sleep as they get older”, Lim said.

In addition, Lim noted that “further studies in humans and animal models are also needed to better understand the physiological and cellular mechanisms linking sleep fragmentation to cerebrovascular health”.