Longer and more frequent daytime naps were associated with higher risk of Alzheimer's dementia. Interestingly, more excessive (longer or more frequent) daytime napping was correlated with worse cognition a year later, and conversely, worse cognition was correlated with more excessive naps a year later.
In a new study recently published in the journal Alzheimer's & Dementia (2022), Li and colleagues report on the results of their long-term study of more than 1,400 older adults, which points to a link between excessive daytime napping and the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease (AD).
While a 30- to 90-minute nap in older adults appears to have brain benefits, anything longer than an hour and a half may create problems with cognition, the ability to think and form memories, according to the study published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.
Daytime napping among older people is a normal part of aging – but it may also foreshadow Alzheimer's disease and other dementias. And once dementia or its usual precursor, mild cognitive impairment, are diagnosed, the frequency and/or duration of napping accelerates rapidly, according to a new study.
People with dementia often have issues with sleep with their memory seemingly worse after a bad night. However, the evidence is unclear on whether poor sleep is a risk factor for dementia.
Is a Two-Hour Nap Too Long? A 2-hour nap may make you feel groggy after you wake up and you might have trouble falling asleep at night. Aim for napping up to 90 minutes, 120-minutes if necessary. Napping every day for 2 hours could be a sign of sleep deprivation and should be discussed with a doctor.
Taking a nap lasting more than 40 minutes can raise your risk of premature death, new research has suggested. A study of more than 300,000 people found that taking long naps during the daytime is linked to developing metabolic syndromes including obesity, high blood pressure and cholesterol.
Could a sudden increased need for naps indicate a health problem? If you're experiencing an increased need for naps and there's no obvious cause of new fatigue in your life, talk to your doctor. You could be taking a medication or have a sleep disorder or other medical condition that's disrupting your nighttime sleep.
Independent of known risk factors for dementia, including age and nighttime sleep duration and fragmentation, longer and more frequent daytime naps were a risk factor for developing Alzheimer's in cognitively normal older men and women.
In the nighttime sleep duration stratification, the findings showed that in the ≥8 h/night group, napping > 60 min per day was associated with a lower likelihood of aging successfully (OR, 0.617; 95% CI, 0.387–0.984).
As a result, a person with dementia may find it quite exhausting to do relatively simple tasks like communicating, eating or trying to understand what is going on around them. This can make the person sleep more during the day as their symptoms become more severe.
Excessive daytime sleepiness in older adults may be a symptom of health issues like sleep apnea, cognitive impairment, or cardiovascular issues. Sleep Apnea: Obstructive sleep apnea can cause pauses in breathing during sleep.
People who take naps on a regular basis may be more likely to have high blood pressure, according to a study published in the September 2022 issue of Hypertension.
Keep in mind that every child is different. Even though most children stop napping between the ages of 3 and 5, your child may stop napping as young as 2 or as old as 6. There is no one specific “normal” age when your child is supposed to give up on naps. The transition may not necessarily be linear either.
If Your Child Is Around About 5 Years Old, They Can Probably Skip A Nap. There's no exact age that your toddler will stop napping: it's generally between ages 3 and 5, but for some kids, it could be as young as 2 (especially if they have older siblings running around and not napping).
But naps can also have their downsides. Naps for adults should be no more than an hour and probably best kept to the 15- to 20-minute range. Anything beyond that – especially considering the time of day – could have consequences.
“Habitual daytime naps are more likely to be indicative of sleep deficiency, chronic … disruption or a disorder such as obstructive sleep apnea, depression or cancer,” Czeisler said.
Modern research suggests that sleeping twice in a 24-hour period (a sleep pattern that is alternately referred to as biphasic sleep, segmented sleep, or siesta sleep) may facilitate greater energy levels, alertness, cognitive function, and productivity.
Limit your nap to 45 minutes or less, if you need to spring into action after dozing. Otherwise, you may drift into slow-wave sleep. Waking from this stage results in sleep inertia, that grogginess and disorientation that can last for half an hour or more. But you might want to take a long nap, at least 90 minutes.
The Mini-Cog test.
A third test, known as the Mini-Cog, takes 2 to 4 minutes to administer and involves asking patients to recall three words after drawing a picture of a clock. If a patient shows no difficulties recalling the words, it is inferred that he or she does not have dementia.
Administration: The examiner reads a list of 5 words at a rate of one per second, giving the following instructions: “This is a memory test. I am going to read a list of words that you will have to remember now and later on. Listen carefully. When I am through, tell me as many words as you can remember.
The biggest risk factor for dementia is ageing. This means as a person gets older, their risk of developing dementia increases a lot. For people aged between 65 and 69, around 2 in every 100 people have dementia. A person's risk then increases as they age, roughly doubling every five years.