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LONDON (Reuters) – Feeling tired and depressed on awakening may be an early sign of dementia, and a bad night's sleep is a red sign of Alzheimer's disease, warn experts.
Tests have shown that people who do not sleep well have higher levels of toxic "Tao" in the brain, characteristic of Alzheimer's disease, the most common form of dementia.
"Measuring people's sleep can be a useful way to detect Alzheimer's disease before or when memory and thinking problems begin to develop," said Dr. Brendan Lucy of the University of Washington in St. Louis.
Changes in the brain leading to the onset of Alzheimer's disease occur slowly and silently. Two years before the appearance of signs of amnesia and confusion, toxic proteins begin to collect plaques in the brain. The clusters of these proteins begin to appear to dispel major parts of the brain.
Scientists around the world are trying to find a way to track Alzheimer's disease, before these brain changes, to control the disease in its infancy. Dr. Lucy's team thinks that sleep may be the first step.
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