Elderly women with sleep apnea had an 85% higher risk of developing mild cognitive impairment, a study found.
Massachusetts researchers studied a group of 298 elderly women, a third of whom had been diagnosed with sleep-disordered breathing. None of them had been diagnosed with dementia.
Five years later, investigators conducted cognition tests. They found that 45% of study participants with sleep apnea developed cognitive impairments, compared with 31% of women without sleep apnea.
The study was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
From the September 01, 2011 Issue of McKnight's Long-Term Care News