Physical activity in dementia of the Alzheimer type

Using an actigraph, we monitored daily activity by the minute over 24 hours for nine patients with dementia of the Alzheimer type and two control volunteers, to assess sleep-wake cycles and daily activities, The patients were classified into two groups: one with relatively well-organized sleep-wake cycles, the other with greatly distributed and fragmented sleep-wake cycles. There was no correlation between the severity of intellectual deterioration and the degree of sleep-wake cycle disintegration in patients with dementia