March 24, 2023 – New research suggests that restless legs syndrome could also be a risk factor for dementia or a really early warning sign of dementia in older adults.
RLS is a condition that causes an uncontrollable urge to maneuver the legs, typically within the evening or at night while sitting or lying down.
A big study of older adults found that those that suffered from RLS were significantly more prone to develop dementia over the course of greater than a decade than their peers without RLS.
RLS is related to sleep disturbances, depression, anxiety, poor nutrition and obesity – all known risk aspects for dementia. However, the links between RLS and dementia are unclear.
To investigate this, Korean researchers examined about 2,500 adults with RLS and a control group of greater than 9,900 comparable people without RLS. All were on average 73 years old.
Over the course of about 10 years, a complete of 874 of them developed dementia, and people with RLS were significantly more prone to also develop dementia (10% versus 6%).
After adjusting for aspects which may affect dementia risk, adults with RLS were 46% more prone to develop dementia than adults without RLS. The study was published within the peer-reviewed journal earlier this month. Alzheimer research and therapy.
RLS may precede a decline in considering and memory that results in dementia and could possibly be considered a “newly identified” risk factor or a really early sign of dementia, say Eosu Kim, MD, PhD, of Yonsei University College of Medicine in Seoul, and colleagues.
If confirmed in future studies, the researchers say that regular screening for cognitive decline in older individuals with RLS could contribute to early detection and intervention in people liable to dementia.
“There is now a growing body of literature showing that sleep is a modifiable risk factor for cognitive decline,” said Thanh Dang-Vu, MD, PhD, of Concordia University in Montreal, Canada, who was not involved within the study.
He noted that previous studies have suggested that each insomnia and sleep apnea increase the chance of cognitive decline and possibly dementia. Sleep apnea is a potentially serious condition wherein respiration repeatedly stops and starts during sleep.
This latest study suggests that RLS also needs to be considered a sleep-related risk factor for Dementia, said Dang-Vu.