Caregivers of People with Dementia Are Losing Sleep

Newswise — Caregivers of people with dementia lose between 2.5 to 3.5 hours of sleep weekly due to difficulty falling asleep and staying asleep — a negative for themselves and potentially for those who receive their care, Baylor University researchers say.

But the good news is that simple, low-cost interventions can improve caregivers’ sleep and functioning.

The researchers’ analysis of 35 studies with data from 3,268 caregivers — “Sleep Duration and Sleep Quality in Caregivers of Patients with Dementia” — is published in JAMA Network Open, a publication of the American Medical Association.

Informal caregiving for a person with dementia is akin to adding a part-time…