Half of the children experience nightmares from time to time.
A mother hugs a child after experiencing a nightmare (Photo: ShutterStock)
Children who experience frequent nightmares are more likely to be diagnosed with Parkinson's disease later in life, according to a new study published in the Lancet eClinicalMedicine journal.
Despite this, and it is important to emphasize this, the study should not cause the parents among us to freak out with worry - as up to 50 percent of children experience nightmares from time to time - and in any case this is not the first time that bad dreams and cognitive decline are related in this way.
Bottom line, the study concluded that children who had persistent distressing dreams had a 76 percent increased risk of experiencing cognitive impairment by age 50, compared to children who did not report bad dreams.
Amazingly, the children who experienced increased nightmares were almost seven times more likely to develop Parkinson's by that age.
Dr. Avidemi Oteiko, a clinical neurologist at the University of Birmingham, arrived at these findings by looking at data from the 1958 British Birth Survey, which provides information on all people in Britain born during a single week in March 1958. In 1965 and 1969, when the participants were 7 and 11 years old , respectively, had their parents surveyed about nightmares. Otaiko then compared this data to follow-up information collected at age 50 about cognitive impairment and Parkinson's. In all, nearly 7,000 people (50 percent men, 50 percent women) were included in the analysis. The study did not look for a causal link between
nightmares Childhood and later cognitive problems In other words, another factor can directly explain why some children will go on to develop cognitive impairment and the nightmare experiences only correlate with it.
best to sleep
quietly.
A sleeping boy (Photo: ShutterStock)
However, there is some solid evidence that this strange link runs deeper than you might think.
In 2022, it was published by Dr. Avidemi Otaiko, that nightmares may be an early warning sign of Alzheimer's. According to the study, middle-aged people who have frequent bad dreams tend to be diagnosed with the progressive disease later in life. "We have shown for the first time that disturbing dreams, or nightmares, may be associated with dementia risk and cognitive decline in healthy adults in the general population.
"This is important because there are very few risk indicators for dementia that can be identified already in middle age."
The study, published in The Lancet, eClinicalMedicine, also found that older men who experienced nightmares on a weekly basis were five times more likely to develop dementia than older men who did not report it.
However, in women, the increase in risk was only 41 percent.
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