Drowsiness,
staring, and other Mental Lapses may signal
Alzheimer’s Disease
Newswise — Older people
who have “mental lapses,” or times when
their thinking seems disorganized or
illogical or when they stare into space, may
be more likely to have Alzheimer’s disease
than people who do not have these lapses.
These mental lapses, also
called cognitive fluctuations, are common in
a type of dementia called dementia with Lewy
bodies, but researchers previously did not
know how frequently they occurred in people
with Alzheimer’s disease and, equally
important, what effect fluctuations might
have on their thinking abilities or
assessment scores.
The study involved 511
people with an average age of 78.
Researchers interviewed the participant and
a family member, evaluated the participants
for dementia and tested their memory and
thinking skills.
People with three or four
of the following symptoms met the criteria
for having mental lapses:
• Feeling drowsy or
lethargic all the time or several times per
day despite getting enough sleep the night
before
• Sleeping two or more
hours before 7 p.m.
• Having times when the
person’s flow of ideas seems disorganized,
unclear, or not logical
• Staring into space for
long periods
A total of 12 percent of
the people with dementia in the study had
mental lapses. Of 216 people with very mild
or mild dementia, 25 had mental lapses. Of
the 295 people with no dementia, only two
had mental lapses.
Those with mental lapses
were 4.6 times more likely to have dementia
than those without mental lapses. People
with mental lapses also tended to have more
severe Alzheimer’s symptoms and perform
worse on tests of memory and thinking skills
than people who did not have lapses.
“When older people are
evaluated for problems with their thinking
and memory, doctors should consider also
assessing them for these mental lapses,”
said senior study author James E. Galvin,
MD, MPH, of Washington University School of
Medicine in St. Louis, who is a member of
the American Academy of Neurology.
The study was supported by
the National Institute on Aging.
The American Academy of
Neurology, an association of more than
22,000 neurologists and neuroscience
professionals, is
dedicated to promoting the highest quality
patient-centered neurologic care. A
neurologist is a doctor with specialized
training in diagnosing, treating and
managing disorders of the brain and nervous
system such as Parkinson’s disease, ALS (Lou
Gehrig’s disease), dementia, West Nile
virus, and ataxia.
For more information about
the American Academy of Neurology, visit
http://www.aan.com.
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