Assessment of Sleep Pattern in Egyptian Elderly with Vascular Dementia

Abstract

leep and circadian disturbances are very frequent in VaD patients and appear early in the course of the disease. The current study was conducted to assess disturbance in sleep pattern in patients with VaD, and compare it to healthy elderly individuals. The study included 20 patients of VaD with mean age 66.05 ± 2.04 and 20 healthy elderly subjects control group with mean age 65.25 ± 2.22. The two groups were age (above 60 years old) and sex-matched. All subjects underwent a neurological, psychiatric examination, lab tests (LFTS, thyroid profile, Hb A1C) and MRI brain for each subject, the following was done; the Hachinski Ischemic Score (HIS), MMSE, CDR, GDS, The Cornell Scale for Depression, Taylor’s Manifest Anxiety Scale, psychometric sleep assessment instruments; ESS,PSQI and PSG. In this study, comprehensive sleep disorders questionnaire revealed that the most common sleep complaints among VaD patients were; excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS) (65%), sleep disordered breathing (SDB) (50%), insomnia (15%) and RLS & PLMS (15%) and RBD (5%) respectively. OSA is a common feature of vascular dementia, and leads to fragmented sleep, increased nocturnal confusion, and excessive daytime sleepiness.