Sleep structure assessed by objective measurement in patients with mild cognitive impairment: A meta-analysis

Objectives: A meta-analysis was used to explore the characteristic changes in objective sleep structure of patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) compared with cognitively healthy older adults. Materials and methods: PubMed, EMBAS, Cochrane Library, Scopus, and Web of Science were searched until November 2023. A literature quality evaluation was performed according to the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale, and a meta-analysis was performed by RevMan 5.3 software. Results: Fifteen studies with 771 participants were finally included. Compared with normal control groups, patients with MCI had a decreased total sleep time by 34.44 min, reduction in sleep efficiency by 7.96 %, increased waking after sleep onset by 19.61 min, and increased sleep latency by 6.97 min. Ten included studies showed that the patients with MCI had increased N1 sleep by 2.72 % and decreased N3 sleep by 0.78 %; however, there was no significant difference between the MCI and control groups in percentage of N2 sleep. Moreover, Twelve included studies reported the MCI groups had shorter REM sleep of 2.69 %.Conclusion: Our results provide evidence of abnormal sleep architecture in patients with MCI. As a "plastic state," abnormal sleep architecture may be a promising therapeutic target for slowing cognitive decline and dementia prevention.