The Association of Self-Reported Sleep Duration, Difficulty Sleeping, and Snoring With Cognitive Function in Older Women

Abstract:
We examined the association of sleep duration, snoring, and difficulty sleeping with cognitive function in a cohort of community-dwelling women. Women (n = 1844), aged 70 to 81 years at initial cognitive interview in 2000, are members of the Nurses’ Health Study cohort. Women completed six tests of cognitive function encompassing general cognition, verbal memory, category fluency, and attention. We repeated the assessment 2 years later. We used linear regression models to obtain multivariate-adjusted mean differences in initial test performance, and in cognitive decline over time, across categories of sleep duration (≤5,6,7,8,9+ hours/night), frequency of snoring (never, occasionally, regularly), and sleep difficulties (rarely/never, occasionally, regularly). In analyses of initial test performance, women sleeping ≤5 hours/night scored worse than women sleeping 7…

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