Tejo Hylkema and C Vlaskamp
Improving Sleep in a Person with Down Syndrome and Alzheimer’s Disease
Problems with falling asleep and sleeping through often occur in people with an intellectual disability [1]. Studies show that 15 to 50% of people with an intellectual disability suffer from sleep problems, and with children with an intellectual disability, this is as many as 58 to 80% [2-5]. Compared with older people in the general population, elderly people with ID (age 50 years and over) have a significantless stable, and more fragmented sleep [6]. The sleep problems can have intrinsic and extrinsic causes [7]. A common intrinsic cause in people with Down’s syndrome (DS) is Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Furthermore, the prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease in senior citizens with Down syndrome is much higher than in the general population, at between 60 and 100%. People with DS are now living longer, and as they age, they are at risk of developing an Alzheimer’s-type dementia [8]. Of all people with DS between 60 and 69 years of age, 54.5% suffer from dementia [9]. In the normal population, with only 1.4% of the population suffers from dementia [10].
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