Being too ‘sleepy’ during the day means a higher chance of developing this pre-dementia syndrome.

This is alarming news for seniors who have trouble sleeping.

Septuagenarians who experience excessive daytime sleepiness or a lack of enthusiasm for activities due to poor sleep habits may be more likely to develop motor cognitive risk syndrome (MCR), which can lead to dementia, a study finds. young.

“Our findings emphasize the need for screening for sleep problems,” said study author Dr. Victoire Leroy of Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx. “The potential exists that people can get help with their sleep problems and prevent cognitive decline later in life.”

Leroy’s team had 445 adults without dementia with an average age of 76 complete a sleep questionnaire and walk on a treadmill at the start of the study and then annually for an average of three years.

Patients with MCR tend to walk slowly and struggle with their memory. It is estimated that 2% to 27% of the global population has this condition.

Leroy’s questionnaire asked how often participants wake up in the middle of the night, how often they have trouble staying awake while driving, and how much they struggle to complete tasks, among other questions.

The researchers found that 177 participants met the definition of poor sleepers, while 268 were considered good sleepers.

Forty-two people had MCR at the start of the study and another 36 developed it.

After the researchers adjusted for age, depression and other health problems, they determined that people with excessive daytime sleepiness and lack of enthusiasm were more than three times more likely to develop MCR than people without these problems.

The study’s authors say their work doesn’t prove that certain sleep-related problems cause MCR — it just shows an association.

“More research needs to be done to look at the relationship between sleep issues and cognitive decline and the role played by cognitive motor risk syndrome,” Leroy said. “We also need studies to elucidate the mechanisms linking these sleep disturbances to cognitive motor risk syndrome and cognitive decline.”

The findings were published Wednesday in the online issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

A limitation of the research — supported by the National Institute on Aging — was that participants shared their own sleep information, which may not have been an accurate representation.

Nearly 7 million Americans have a diagnosis of dementia.

Risk factors include lower academic achievement, hearing loss, high blood pressure, tobacco use, obesity, depression, diabetes, excessive alcohol consumption, traumatic brain injury, air pollution, social isolation, loss of eyesight, high cholesterol and a sedentary lifestyle.

Experts generally recommend that adults get seven to nine hours of sleep each night.