Patients with Parkinson’s disease who have higher levels of slow-wave, or deep, sleep show significantly higher performance on a variety cognitive measures, Medscape reports.
“We found that sleep has a significant influence on cognitive performance in Parkinson’s disease,” said first author, Amy W. Amara, MD, from the University of Alabama, Birmingham, in presenting the findings here at the ANA 2017: 142nd Annual Meeting of the American Neurological Association.
“These findings suggest that interventions to improve sleep might improve cognitive function as well.”
Sleep dysfunction is common in Parkinson’s disease, resulting from multifactorial causes ranging from nocturnal motor symptoms of the disease to side effects from various drugs.
