Does trouble sleeping lead to dementia? A NY doctor studies link to insomnia [Video]

SYRACUSE, N.Y. (WSTM) — Recently news came out that actor Bruce Willis was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia. That diagnosis put the disease back into the forefront of discussion for people around the country.

For one upstate New York doctor, the disease is of particular interest and a key to understanding dementia might be in how you sleep.

Dr. Roger Wong is an Assistant Professor of Public Health and Preventative Medicine at SUNY Upstate. He began studying insomnia’s link to dementia after noticing his father would wake up early and not be able to fall back asleep, a term known as sleep maintenance.

I was really worried about long-term how that would affect his risk for dementia,” he said. “When I started doing research into if that would actually increase his risk for dementia, it came up very inconclusive.

Dr. Wong began combing through 10 years of data focusing on three types of sleep disturbances: Sleep initiation insomnia where the person has trouble falling asleep, sleep …