Patients with dementias, such as Alzheimer's disease (AD), often have nocturnally disrupted
sleep. Clinically, this may present as agitation during the nighttime hours, which may affect
as many as a quarter of AD patients during some stage of their illness. Sleep disturbance in
AD may be multifactorial and involve sleep-disordered breathing and disrupted
chronobiology, both often characterized by excessive daytime napping.
Polysomnographically, AD patients show decreased rapid eye movement (REM) sleep in …