Sleep Quality and Aging: A Systematic Review on Healthy Older People, Mild Cognitive Impairment and Alzheimer’s Disease

Maria Casagrande, Giuseppe Forte, Francesca Favieri and Ilaria Corbo
Additional contact information
Maria Casagrande: Department of Dynamic and Clinical Psychology and Health Studies, Sapienza University of Rome, 00185 Roma, Italy
Giuseppe Forte: Department of Dynamic and Clinical Psychology and Health Studies, Sapienza University of Rome, 00185 Roma, Italy
Francesca Favieri: Body and Action Laboratory, IRCCS Santa Lucia Foundation, Via Ardeatina 306, 00179 Rome, Italy
Ilaria Corbo: Department of Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome, Via dei Marsi 78, 00185 Roma, Italy

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 14, 1-29

Abstract: Aging is characterized by changes in the structure and quality of sleep. When the alterations in sleep become substantial, they can generate or accelerate cognitive decline, even in the absence of overt pathology. In fact, impaired sleep represents one of the earliest symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). This systematic review aimed to analyze the studies on sleep quality in aging, also considering mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and AD. The review process was conducted according to the PRISMA statement. A total of 71 studies were included, and the whole sample had a mean age that ranged from 58.3 to 93.7 years (62.8–93.7 healthy participants and 61.8–86.7 pathological populations). Of these selected studies, 33 adopt subjective measurements, 31 adopt objective measures, and 10 studies used both. Pathological aging showed a worse impoverishment of sleep than older adults, in both subjective and objective measurements. The most common aspect compromised in AD and MCI were REM sleep, sleep efficiency, sleep latency, and sleep duration. These results underline that sleep alterations are associated with cognitive impairment. In conclusion, the frequency and severity of sleep disturbance appear to follow the evolution of cognitive impairment. The overall results of objective measures seem more consistent than those highlighted by subjective measurements.

Keywords: sleep quality; mild cognitive impairment; Alzheimer; aging; healthy elderly; older (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/14/8457/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/14/8457/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:14:p:8457-:d:860001

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().