Survivors need to beware.
A new study reveals that fewer than half of stroke survivors manage to achieve a healthy and normal sleep pattern. Healthy sleep is generally defined as getting six to eight hours of rest per night. However, most of the nearly 1,600 stroke survivors in the research either slept too much or too little.
Dr. Sara Hassani, from Duke University School of Medicine, emphasized the importance of adequate sleep for brain and heart health. She highlighted that abnormal sleep patterns after a stroke can hinder recovery and lower the quality of life. The findings suggest a need to screen stroke patients for sleep issues and to explore ways to help them improve their sleep habits.
The study, published on September 11 in the journal Neurology, involved almost 40,000 adults, with 1,572 having survived a stroke. Participants were asked every two years about their average sleep duration on weekdays. Stroke survivors were consistently less likely to get normal sleep compared to those without a history of stroke, regardless of age. The percentage of stroke survivors getting normal sleep ranged from 32% to 47%, compared to 54% in those who hadn’t had a stroke.
After adjusting for various risk factors, the research found that stroke survivors were 54% more likely to sleep over eight hours and 50% more likely to sleep less than six hours compared to people without stroke histories. Dr. Hassani noted that prior research has linked stroke to abnormal sleep patterns, such as sleep apnea, and called for further studies to explore how sleep duration affects stroke recovery outcomes.
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