Correlates of Sleep Disturbance among Older Adults with Mild Cognitive Impairment: A Cross-Sectional Study

Individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) are at high risk for dementia development. Sleep disturbance is often overlooked in MCI, although it is an important risk factor of cognitive decline. In the absence of a cure for dementia, managing the risk factors of cognitive decline in MCI is likely to delay disease progression. To develop interventions for sleep disturbance in MCI, its related factors should be explored. This study aimed to identify and compare the correlates of sleep disturbance in older adults with MCI and those in cognitively healthy older adults. A comparative cross-sectional study was adopted. Data were obtained from 219 Chinese community-dwelling older adults (female: 70.3%), which consisted of 127 older adults with MCI and 92 age-matched cognitively healthy controls. The candidate correlates of sleep disturbance included socio-demographic correlates, health-related factors, lifestyle-related factors and psychological factor. Descriptive, correlational and regression statistics were used for data analysis. The prevalence of sleep disturbance in MCI was 70.1% compared to that of 56.5% in cognitively healthy controls (p< 0.001). The multivariate analysis indicated that, in participants with MCI, depressive symptoms (Beta = 0.297,p= 0.001), comorbidity burden (Beta = 0.215,p= 0.012) and physical activity (Beta = -0.297,p= 0.001) were associated with sleep disturbance. However, in the cognitively healthy controls, only depressive symptoms (Beta = 0.264,p= 0.028) and comorbidity burden (Beta = 0.361,p= 0.002) were associated with sleep disturbance. This finding highlights that sleep disturbance is sufficiently prominent to warrant evaluation and management in older adults with MCI. Furthermore, the findings elucidate several important areas to target in interventions aimed at promoting sleep in individuals with MCI.