Dissertations & Theses (Open Access)

Date of Award

Spring 5-2019

Degree Name

Master of Public Health (MPH)

Advisor(s)

Jan Bressler, Phd, Mph

Second Advisor

Kim Waller, Phd, Mph

Abstract

In the United States, the current cases of Alzheimer’s disease will double by 2050. Therefore, it is important to study risk factors associated with dementia such as sleep duration. This meta-analysis was conducted to understand the discrepancy in study results since some demonstrated a V shaped association between duration of sleep and dementia while others found no association. If there truly is an association then sleep duration could be targeted to decrease the burdens caused by dementia. A meta-analysis of published studies was conducted to assess the association between sleep duration and the different forms of dementia. The articles were found using PubMed, Embase, Scopus, and EBSCO with the search terms (“Sleep Duration” OR “Change in Sleep Duration”) AND (Alzheimer* OR Dementia) and reviewing bibliographies. Studies were included in the analysis if they met the following criteria 1) a longitudinal study 2) a cohort, case-control, or clinical trial 3) assessed the exposure and outcome of interest 4) diagnosed dementia using established diagnostic criteria 5) provided a risk estimate and 95% confidence interval (CI) 6) in English 7) a published paper. Analyses such as test of heterogeneity, sensitivity analysis, and tests of publication bias were done using STATA15. The analysis included 11 cohort studies with a total of 48,360 participants. No significant association was found between short or long sleep duration and any form of dementia. However, there was a significant association between increase in sleep and dementia but there were only two published papers that examined this association. This study suggests that there is likely no association between sleep duration and any form of dementia which differs from results of previous meta-analyses.

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