SAN DIEGO — A new study from Scripps Research is examining the link between sleep and dementia in women.
Wearing a Fitbit has given Laura Nicholson a lot of insight into her life. She is participating in the REFRESH-NOW sleep study through Scripps Research that’s examining the link between sleep and dementia in women.
“My cat is much more disruptive than I thought she was," Nicholson said. "Because now I’m mentally thinking about my sleep score and if I get a lousy score, I’m like ‘Oh yeah, my cat woke me up three times.’”
The study is being led by physician and scientist Stuti Jaiswal, who is using wrist-worn activity trackers and smartwatches to gather sleep data over a three-year period in women 55 and older.
“I was surprised by some of my sleep data, it was not what I was expecting at all," Nicholson said.
Jaiswal says Alzheimer’s disease, the most common type of dementia, currently affects twice as many women as men. She said having disruptive sleep was always believed to be an effect of dementia, but now there's evidence it could be connected to developing the disease.
“Disrupted sleep or impaired sleep, is that like an early sign of dementia, is that like the first thing that might happen to people before the memory changes or before the behavioral changes happen, or is it something that we could actually try to change to prevent dementia?” she said.
The study cast a wide net across the U.S. so women of all backgrounds can participate, even giving out free Fitbits and gift cards to participants. They will gather data over a three-year period and participants will check in regularly by taking cognitive tests.
The study will use the MyDataHelps mobile app-based platform, which allows participants to sync their activity tracker or smartwatch to share de-identified data such as sleep duration, sleep variability measures, frequency of awakenings and more.
Jaiswal hopes the data can lead them to design ways to improve the cognitive health of women in the future.
“I feel like we’ve spent a lot of time studying men’s health problems and I think it’s time that we can maybe take a piece of this pie and really look at it for women alone,” she said.
Nicholson has already made changes to her daily routine to help her sleep better, like going to bed earlier, and is considering getting a traditional alarm clock instead of using her cellphone to wake up. She is excited to see what researchers can learn from her and the other women in the study.
“Engaging a lot of women, women in my age group, but all women in research and finding out more about ourselves and how we can improve our lives, including through sleep,” she said.
For the study, researchers need about 400 women who have never been diagnosed with dementia.