No abstract

Daytime sleepiness in older adults may be an early indicator of decline in cognitive functioning and onset of dementia.

After mice were exposed to a daily auditory stressor for varying lengths of time, the responses of their splenic lymphoid cells in vitro were assessed. Both the blastogenic activity of concanavalin A or lipopolysaccharide and the ability of immune lymphocytes to lyse P815 target cells showed the same patterns of immunosuppression and enhancement.

This article proposes new standards for identifying, defining, and naming sleep/wake cycle disturbances associated with Alzheimer's disease (AD) to aid in more effective research, including the development and testing of potential treatments. Many AD patients develop sleep/wake cycle disturbances associated with distress, depression, and sleep disturbances in the caregiver, as well as early nursing home placement for the patient. The Food and Drug Administration Psychopharmacological Drugs Advisory Committee has emphasized the need for a comprehensive diagnostic system. A key point made by the committee was that behavioral problems associated with dementia (including sleep and chronobiological disturbances) are scientifically and clinically valid targets of pharmacologic treatment. However, current diagnostic criteria preclude development of FDA-acceptable studies of pharmacological interventions because they do not include the required specific indications for treatment. This article attempts to develop better-defined provisional criteria with the goal of promoting epidemiological, physiological, and, especially, pharmacological research on sleep/wake disturbances.

Sleep-disordered breathing was associated with more drowsiness but not with poor performance on standardized cognitive tests used to screen for Alzheimer disease and other dementias in older persons. Because a healthy-participant effect may have contributed to this finding, more extensive cognitive testing may be necessary to reveal more subtle deficits from sleep-disordered breathing.