Sleep disorders in vascular dementia and Alzheimer disease

In this study we have evaluated sleep disorders in patients with dementia, including vascular dementia (VD), Alzheimer disease (AD), mixed dementia (MXD) and other dementias (OD), and in control subjects (CS) by using the Senile Dementia-Associated Sleep Disorders Scale (SDASDS), which consists of two subscales evaluating sleep disorders (SDASDS-SA) and dementia associated symptoms (SDASDS-DA), respectively. As compared to control subjects, mean SDASDS scores were significantly increased in VD and MXD, but not in early and late onset AD nor in OD. SDASDS values correlated significantly with scores obtained in other psychometric tools, specially ADASnoncog, these correlations being higher for the SDASDS-DA than for the SDASDS-SA subscale. Thus, it seems that sleep disorders are more prevalent in VD and MXD and correlate with behavioral disturbances.