Important indicators of cognitive deficits
“Specifically, for an older adult who comes into the clinic with complaints of waking up during the night, low sleep efficiency and more lighter-stage sleep might be really important indicators that they are probably not going to be the best at identifying their cognitive abilities or deficits,” she said.
Future directions for this research include collecting more data and looking at other sleep measures, such as using rapid-eye movement sleep, as potential moderators for the relationship between cognitive outcomes, evaluating sleep architecture more closely, and evaluating outcomes in a longitudinal study, Ms. Costa said.
The importance of objectively measured sleep
“Studies like this one using objectively measured sleep are important because much of the prior literature relied on self-reported sleep measures,” said Brendan P. Lucey, MD, associate professor of neurology and head of the sleep medicine section at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. “This study suggests how objectively measured sleep may mediate discrepancies in objective/subjective cognitive dysfunction. Future studies need to work out if we need to add objective sleep measures when evaluating cognitive complaints in older adults.”
Dr. Brendan P. Lucey
Dr. Lucey, who was not involved in the study, voiced one concern with the pilot study methodology the future research should address: the use of the Sleep Profiler PSG2TM to measure N1 sleep, which, as he noted, records a single-channel electroencephalogram over the forehead. “Scoring N1 sleep relies on attenuation of the alpha rhythm over the occipital region and the Sleep Profiler is not as accurate as in-lab polysomnography for this sleep stage,” he said.
The pilot study received funding from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine Foundation. Ms. Costa and her coauthors have no disclosures. Dr. Lucey disclosed relationships with Merck, Eli Lilly, Eisai, and Beacon Biosignals.