Dementia caregiving takes toll on sleep

(Reuters Health) – Family caregivers for dementia patients don’t sleep as long or as well as other adults of the same age, a new study suggests.

In an analysis of the combined data from 35 earlier studies, researchers found that dementia caregivers slept about 3 hours less per week than age-matched adults, according to the report published in JAMA Network Open.

“Sleep debt is known to have cumulative associations with physical, mental and cognitive health,” the researchers, led by Chenlu Gao wrote. “Therefore, poor sleep quality in dementia caregivers should be recognized and addressed.”

The researchers did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

To take a closer look at the impact of caregiving on sleep, the Gao and her colleagues scoured the medical literature for research on the topic. In the end they focused on 35 studies that looked at sleep problems in caregivers, including some that also considered the impact of therapy for the issue.

Sleep length and…