Sleep trajectories across three cognitive-aging pathways in community older adults

Comparing sleep and rest-activity rhythms across different cognitive aging pathways can identify novel risk factors and potential mechanisms. However, our current understanding is restricted by differences in sleep measurement, limited longitudinal data, and heterogeneous cognitive aging processes.

We applied cubic splines to longitudinal self-reported sleep and actigraphy data from 1449 participants in the Rush Memory and Aging Project and quantified differences in the levels and trajectories of sleep amount, regularity, and timing within and between three cognitive aging pathways: normal, stable mild cognitive impairment, dementia.

Sleep amount was lowest in the dementia pathway prior to cognitive impairment but increased with age, most rapidly after dementia. Regularity declined across all pathways, most rapidly after cognitive diagnoses. Timing advanced across all pathways.

Shorter sleep amount in cognitively healthy older adults may be a risk factor or prodromal indicator of dementia, while longer sleep amounts and decreasing regularity may reflect neurodegeneration.

We quantified longitudinal changes in sleep across three cognitive-aging pathways. We incorporated both subjective and objective measures of sleep health. Self-report duration increased noticeably from before to after cognitive diagnosis. Sleep irregularity increased most prominently after cognitive diagnosis. Advances in sleep timing occurred in both normal and pathological aging.