Beware, Excessive Sleep Makes You More at Risk of Dementia in Old Age

Sleep is a basic human need. During sleep, the cells in the body repair themselves and renew energy. Thus, adequate sleep time is needed to support health. You may often hear if the lack of sleep can cause stress, become tired in the next day, mood disorders, and so forth. But not only that, excessive sleep can also increase the risk of dementia, according to recent research.

Excessive sleep increases the risk of dementia

A study published in the journal Neurology has recently shown that excessive sleep can increase the risk of dementia. The study led by Dr. Sudha Seshadri, professor of neurology at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM), was conducted by collecting sleep time for the study participants every night. Researchers also followed the development of Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia in participants for 10 years.

As a result, researchers found that participants who slept for more than 9 hours had twice the risk of developing dementia 10 years later, compared with participants who had nine hours of sleep or less.

The study also proved that participants who slept more than 9 hours had a smaller brain volume compared to participants who had a sleep time of 6-9 hours. This is due to a decrease in brain function (the brain is less successful in processing the mind and completing tasks), thus increasing the risk of dementia.

The results of this study may help predict people at risk of dementia. Sleep time is too long can also be the first sign of a person developing neurodegeneration disease (a disease that attacks brain cells and spinal cord). Efforts to reduce the amount of sleep time apparently will not reduce the risk of dementia.

What is dementia?

Dementia is not a disease. This is a term used to describe the various symptoms associated with decreased memory or other thinking abilities. Alzheimer's is one cause of someone experiencing dementia. People with dementia usually have problems with short-term memory.

Dementia is caused by damage to brain cells. This results in disruption of the ability of brain cells to communicate with each other. Thus, brain function can be disrupted and can affect your ability to think, behave, and feel. Unfortunately, most of the changes in the brain that cause dementia are permanent and can worsen over time.

Symptoms of dementia

People with dementia usually show symptoms, such as

1. Difficulty in speaking and understanding of speech
2. Easy to forget the date and day
3. It is easy to forget a thing and can not remember/trace where the last saw the item
4. Difficult to complete the daily work such as preparing food
5. There is a change in personality and mood
6. Feeling depressed
7. Hallucinating
8. Have problems in controlling emotions
9. Loss of empathy

How long is the ideal sleep time?

Sleep can be an indicator of overall health and well-being. Thus, adequate sleep is very important to be fulfilled. The required sleep time may vary between ages. For adults aged 18-64 years, the required sleep time is 7-9 hours. Meanwhile, elderly age 65 years and over takes sleep as much as 7-8 hours. Sleep time of fewer than 7 hours may increase the risk of obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, coronary heart disease, stroke, and mental stress.

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