Sleep Fragmentation and Attention in Alzheimer's Disease

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The overarching goal of this proposed 3 year career development award is (PWAD). Specifically, I will 1) pursue advanced training in the use and interpretation of objective measurements of sleep and cognition in PWAD, 2) gain detailed knowledge of mechanisms underlying sleep and the cognitive manifestations of AD, and 3) acquire the skills needed to build a program of research aimed at understanding the mechanisms of acute and chronically fragmented sleep and its effect on PWAD. In addition to coursework, guided studies, and attendance at professional meetings. I propose to begin by investigating the effect of 1 night of sleep fragmentation and 1 night of undisturbed recovery sleep on attention in PWAD. Although there is beginning evidence that sleep fragmentation affects attention in persons without cognitive impairment, no one has studied it in PWAD. Alzheimer's disease is primarily thought of as a disease of impaired memory and although attention is not the same as memory, the ability to pay attention is a prerequisite for memory and the inability to pay attention may cause or worsen memory complaints. I am an advanced practice nurse and in my practice I have cared for older adults, many of whom had dementia. Postdoctoral study at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences with Drs. Kathy Richards and Cornelia Beck has opened a new career path in the area of sleep research in PWAD that has the potential to increase understanding of the short-term and long-term effects of sleep fragmentation on cognition in PWAD and hopefully, to target interventions that will slow their memory decline. But I am a novice in this field and need the additional time a career development award provides to continue to develop expertise. Since our mutual commitment to this project I have worked to develop a proposal that will complement and not duplicate Drs. Richards and Beck's work.