Monday, June 23, 2008

Resetting body clocks for people with dementia

Older people with dementia have disturbed body clocks which can contribute to cognitive decline and problems with mood, behaviour and the activities of everyday living. Bright light and melatonin are known to help with body-clock problems and a study of care-home residents in Holland found that bright light slowed cognitive decline by 5%, reduced symptoms of depression by 19% and helped to slow down loss of functional ability. Melatonin improved sleep patterns but worsened mood unless it was accompanied by bright light.

British Medical Journal 21 June, 2008, 1400-1401

2 comments:

Weight Loss Warrior said...

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John Gale said...

Well, the bottom line with quite a bit of research is that you can usually find what you set out looking for and there are often ways of fiddling around with parameters, manipulating data that can be done to achieve this. So don't shoot the messenger - I am just reporting what the research says! If you are really interested in this you will need to find the original article rather than just my synopsis. But the BMJ is a very reputable medical journal. Best Wishes - John