By: Hannah Clay
According to the Office of Disease and Prevention, a good night’s sleep helps you think clearly and improves decision making.
People who suffer from sleep apnea can have trouble with this. Sleep apnea is “a potentially serious sleep disorder in which breathing repeatedly stops and starts,” according to the Mayo Clinic.
A new study was just completed by a researcher in Boston that examined the correlation between sleep apnea and thinking and memory problems.
“The effort to get peaceful sleep is all too familiar to me as someone who suffers from sleep apnea. Every night seems like a battlefield, with fatigue and a growing risk of memory loss and cognitive deterioration as the enemies,” Harold Evans said, a 60-year-old male who has sleep apnea.
The researched showed a 50% increase in memory and thinking problems with people who experience sleep apnea.
There are three main types of sleep apnea, obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), central sleep apnea (CSA), and treatment-emergent central sleep apnea also known as complex sleep apnea.
Obstructive sleep apnea is when the flow of air into the lungs is blocked by relaxed throat muscles. OSA is the most common type of sleep apnea, but it is still believed by researchers from PubMed Central, that 85% of people who have OSA have never been diagnosed.
Dr. Dominique Low who is a sleep medicine specialist at the Boston Medical Center in Massachusetts conducted the study to find out more about the connection between sleep apnea and cognition.
The data for Dr. Low’s study originated from the 2017-18 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES).
The 4,257 participants involved in the study answered questions about thinking, memory, and sleep quality.
Dr. Low compared the characteristics of those who reported symptoms of sleep apnea to those who did not using the information from these surveys.
In addition, the participants provided information on their memory, if they had experienced times of disorientation, and whether they believed that making judgments was difficult for them.
1,079 people in all reported having signs of sleep apnea, such as gasping for air as they sleep.
According to Dr. Low, 33% of those who reported having symptoms of sleep apnea also reported having memory and reasoning issues. This is a substantial increase from the 20% of individuals in the same group who did not report having any symptoms of sleep apnea yet nevertheless experienced issues.
Dr. Low found that those with sleep apnea symptoms had a 50% higher likelihood of experiencing thinking and memory problems than participants who did not report having sleep apnea symptoms, even after controlling for other variables including age, race, and gender.
The research was presented at the American Academy of Neurology in April of this year.
It is important to acknowledge that a correlation does not imply causality, even in light of the consequences of these findings. It is essential for researchers to carry out additional studies that go beyond self-reported symptoms in order to determine how sleep apnea symptoms impact cognitive functions like memory and thinking.
“Cognitive changes are a well-known complication of OSA,” Kenneth Fleisher said, a clinical professor at New York University who specializes in OSA.
After hearing about the study, Melinda Milsap, mother of four, was concerned with what this could mean in the future for her son.
Melinda Milsap has been battling the difficulties associated with her 8-year-old son's diagnosis of sleep apnea. Milsap, who was worried about the disorder's possible effects, recently came across this study that clarified the cognitive hazards connected to sleep apnea.
“As someone who lives with a husband and kid who suffer from sleep apnea, I have personally seen the negative effects it has on their memory as well as their quality of sleep. The significant impact sleep apnea has on cognitive health is something that needs to be understood and addressed,” Milsap said.
The results from the study highlight the critical need for increased knowledge and proactive care of sleep apnea, which will benefit Melinda and many others navigating the challenges of the condition.
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