Sleeping woman - Rawpixel on iStock
Sleeping woman - Rawpixel on iStock Researchers from UCL, the UK Dementia Research Institute, Imperial College London and Newcastle University, are involved in a major new collaboration to develop a technology that could help identify people at risk of developing dementia by analysing their sleep patterns. Using a Sleep Analyzer tracking mat produced by technology company, Withings, the researchers created The Dementia Sleep Index - by comparing sleep patterns of people living with dementia to data that equates to 3.7million nights of sleep in the general population. From this, they were able to create a 'digital biomarker' that reveals a signature characteristic of sleep disorders frequently observed in people with dementia. The new project, which is funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), will expand on this, to see if it is possible to identify people at risk of developing dementia. To do this, the team will study 250 people from the Insight 46 study, which is drawn from members of the MRC National Survey of Health and Development (NSHD) 1946 British Birth Cohort, based at UCL. These individuals were all born in the same week in 1946, and now aged 77, have been studied throughout their lives - with detailed investigations of their brain health. Professor Jonathan Schott (UCL Queen Square of Neurology and UK DRI Clinical Advisor), said: "Studying the Insight 46 cohort offers us a unique opportunity to really understand the way sleep behaviour relates to dementia risk.
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