Nightmares in Middle Age Linked to Increased Dementia Risk



Although the majority of us view nightmares as mostly benign, they may actually be a warning. People who frequently have awful dreams in middle age are more likely to develop dementia later in life, according to study from the University of Birmingham.

According to recent studies, dreams may become widespread years or even decades before dementia's typical memory and reasoning issues manifest. Today, September 21, 2022, the study will be released in The Lancet publication, eClinicalMedicine.                                                                                                 
According to Dr. Abidemi Otaiku of the University of Birmingham's Center for Human Brain Health, "We've shown for the first time that upsetting dreams, or nightmares, can be connected to dementia risk and cognitive decline among healthy adults in the general population."

This is crucial because there aren't many dementia risk factors that may be recognized as early as middle age. Although further research is required to establish these connections, we think nightmares could be a useful tool for identifying people who are at a high risk of dementia and devising preventative measures.

For the study, Dr. Otaiku looked at data from three community-based cohorts in the US. These comprised 2,600 seniors aged 79 and older, as well as more than 600 adult men and women between the ages of 79 and 64. All of the patients were dementia-free at the beginning of the trial, and the younger participants were followed up with for an average of nine years and the older participants for an average of five years.

Between 2002 and 2012, data gathering for the project got under way. The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), which includes a question on how frequently people experience disturbing nightmares, was one of many surveys that participants answered.

Statistical software was used to evaluate this data to see whether people who reported having more nightmares were more likely to later experience cognitive impairment and be given a dementia diagnosis.

The study found that older persons were twice as likely to be given a dementia diagnosis as middle-aged people (35–64) who often have disturbing dreams. Middle-aged people are four times more likely to develop cognitive impairment over the ensuing ten years.

The study's finding that the connections were substantially stronger for men than for women is particularly intriguing. For example, older men having no nightmares were five times less likely to acquire dementia than older men reporting nightmares on a weekly basis. The risk rise was only 41% for women, though.

The research's next steps will involve examining if nightmares in young people may be linked to a higher chance of developing dementia as well as whether other aspects of dreams, such as how often we remember them and how vivid they are, may also be used to determine dementia risk. The researchers also intend to look into the molecular causes of terrible dreams in both healthy persons and those with dementia using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and electroencephalography (EEG).

Refer to the article entitled "Distressing nightmares, cognitive decline, and dementia risk: A prospective analysis of three population-based cohorts." eClinicalMedicine, September 21, 2022.

By UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM 

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