If you’re feeling daytime sleepiness while performing your daily tasks as you age, this unpleasant discomfort may be linked to a higher risk of developing a condition called dementia.

Dementia occurs when brain cells begin to degenerate and become slowly damaged over time. This affects a person’s memory, creates confusion, changes their personality and makes it difficult to perform daily tasks. Older adults are more at risk for this condition as it is the fastest growing neurological disorder in the world. Alzheimer’s disease is the most common type of dementia.

Researchers have linked poor sleep and dementia in their new study in the journal Neurology and highlighted that 35.5% of participants who experienced excessive daytime sleepiness developed motor cognitive risk syndrome.

The study followed 445 older adults (average age 76 years) for about three years to understand whether poor sleep increased their risk of mild cognitive impairment (MCR), a potential precursor to dementia.

Initially, none of the participants had MCR. By the end of the study, 36 participants developed it.

The researchers found that people who reported poor sleep were more likely to develop MCR than those with good sleep quality. However, after adjusting for depressive symptoms, this association became weaker, suggesting that poor sleep alone may not be as strong a risk factor for MCR when mental health is also considered.

The study measured sleep quality using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), which assesses factors such as sleep duration, disturbance, and daytime alertness. Of these, only “daytime procrastination” – meaning excessive sleepiness and low arousal during the day – was associated with a higher risk of MCR.

People with this symptom were three times more likely to develop MCR than people without the symptom.

The researchers called for avoiding daytime sleepiness and maintaining proper mental health – two factors that have been linked to dementia.