Experiencing daytime sleepiness is something that is usually perceived as a minor inconvenience, but for older adults, it could be an early warning sign of Dementia. This neurodegenerative disease leads to the progressive decline of brain cells. This eventually

affects memory, cognition, and personality, making everyday tasks more difficult. As one of the fastest-growing neurological disorders across the world, dementia poses a significant health threat to ageing populations.

Is Dementia Linked To Poor Sleep?

For this study, researchers followed 445 older adults (average age 76) over three years, aiming to determine whether poor sleep could increase the risk of mild cognitive impairment (MCI), which often leads to dementia. At the start, none of the participants had MCI, but by the end of the study, 36 individuals had developed the condition.

The researchers discovered that participants with poor sleep were more likely to develop MCI compared to those who slept well. However, when depression symptoms were taken into account, the link between poor sleep and MCI became less pronounced, suggesting that while sleep issues are a concern, mental health also plays a key role in dementia risk.

To assess sleep quality, the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) was used, evaluating factors such as sleep duration, disturbances, and daytime alertness. Among these, "daytime dysfunction"—defined as excessive sleepiness and low energy during the day—was most strongly associated with an increased risk of MCI. Those experiencing daytime dysfunction were more than three times as likely to develop MCI as those who didn’t report such symptoms.

There are many types of dementia:

Dementia is not a specific disease. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), it is an overall term that describes a decline in mental ability that interferes with daily life. People with dementia often have symptoms like trouble remembering, thinking, or making everyday decisions. These symptoms tend to get worse over time.

Alzheimer’s disease is the most common type of dementia, and it mostly affects the elderly. Each form of dementia has a different cause. Though dementia mostly affects older adults, it is not a part of normal ageing. An estimated 6.7 million older adults have Alzheimer's disease in the United States. That number is expected to double by 2060, as per data from the CDC.

In 2022, 3.8% of men and 4.2% women in US were diagnosed with dementia. The percentage of people increase with age from 1.7% for those aged 65-74 to 13.1% for those aged 85 and older. Alzheimer's accounts for 60 to 80% of all dementia cases and it is most prevalent in California, Florida, and Texas, as these states have the highest number of people.

Maryland Governor Wes Moore has urged strengthening investment in maternal health initiatives in the US that will support mothers before and after they give birth.

Speaking to NBC News on the occasion of Mother’s Day on May 10, Moore, along with Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, spoke about the need to improve access to care for mothers.

Moore, who has served as governor since January 2023, emphasized the need to leverage resources from the government, the private sector, and community organizations to address access gaps.

In light of this, the Maryland Governor highlighted a new partnership his administration entered with The Bridge Project to provide direct cash assistance to new mothers.

The Bridge Project, which has programs in 10 cities, counties, or regions across the country, offers mothers financial support and community resources to assist them during pregnancy and “for the first several years” with their baby.

“It’s going to happen for 150 families in the … areas of Maryland that you’ve had concentrated poverty being a long-term challenge,” said Moore, a father of two.

“And it’s now coming off the heels of additional initiatives that we pulled together, where we’ve reestablished the Governor’s Office for Children. We’ve started something called the ENOUGH Initiative, which is actually an acronym that stands for engaging neighborhoods, organizations, unions, governments, and households, which is the nation’s first place-based, state-led anti-poverty initiative,” he added.

Sanders Urges Bipartisan Action to Improve Maternal Health

Meanwhile, Sanders, who has three children, said she made maternal health a priority after becoming governor, citing Arkansas’ consistently poor ranking in maternal mortality rates.

“If we can see these women and help them and support them from the very beginning of their pregnancy all the way through, then we can help address some of these problems, and we can change maternal health,” Sanders. “Not just in our state, but across the country.”

Read More: Hantavirus: 2 Indian Crew Members On MV Hondius Asymptomatic; How Passengers Were Evacuated?

Sanders said she convened a strategic working group to identify ways to improve maternal health outcomes throughout the state and was “pleasantly shocked by how many people showed up.”

“People that I know actively campaigned against me were some of the most helpful people in developing our strategic plan on how we were going to address this problem in Arkansas,” the governor added. “It is something that breaks down a lot of walls. Everybody knows a mom. Everybody has a mom.”

The working group led Sanders to introduce the Healthy Moms, Healthy Babies Act and other initiatives, including the Proactive Postpartum Call Center run through the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, which calls women in their first six weeks postpartum to ask and answer questions about physical and mental health.

Maternal Mortality In The US

Also read: World Thalassemia Day 2026: Why Screening Before Marriage Or Pregnancy Is Important

As per March 2026 data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the 2024 figures raise concerns about maternal health in the country. The US has already had one of the highest maternal mortality rates among high-income countries.

The CDC's report stated that in 2024, 649 women died of maternal causes in the United States, compared with 669 in 2023

The maternal mortality rate for 2024, 17.9 deaths per 100,000 live births, shows no significant decline from 18.6 deaths in 2023.

Two Indian nationals onboard the hantavirus-hit MV Hondius cruise ship are healthy and unsymptomatic, the Embassy of India in Madrid said on May 10.

The Dutch-flagged vessel MV Hondius, with more than 90 people, including two Indian Crew members, arrived in Spain's Canary Islands on May 10.

They have been medically evacuated to the Netherlands, the embassy said.

"The 2 Indian nationals are healthy and asymptomatic. As informed by the Spanish National Center for Emergency Monitoring and Coordination (CENEM), the 2 Indian nationals who were travelling as crew members have been evacuated to the Netherlands, where they will be quarantined as per relevant health safety protocol," it said, in a statement.

While the residents of the Canary Islands had voiced concerns that its arrival could pose a potential health risk, the Spanish government, in coordination with the World Health Organization (WHO), agreed to allow passengers to disembark in the Canary Islands this weekend. The ship had travelled from Cape Verde, where three people were evacuated earlier due to illness.

All the passengers onboard disembarked from the ship in accordance with the protocol established by the WHO and the Spanish authorities.

"The Ambassador is in close contact with the Spanish authorities and the 2 Indian nationals (crew members) and is regularly monitoring the situation to assure the well-being and safety of the Indian nationals," the statement further added.

How Were The Passengers Evacuated?

As per the World Health Organization (WHO), the MV Hondius had six passengers with confirmed cases of hantavirus and two with suspected cases.

Three of those people have died, officials said, including two who died while aboard the ship.

An image of passengers disembarking from the ship on Sunday showed people dressed in personal protective equipment being taken to shore aboard a small boat, NBC News reported.

The first plane carrying passengers departed Tenerife for the Spanish capital Madrid shortly afterward.

Earlier, Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s head of epidemic and pandemic preparedness, said that after being brought to shore, passengers will be kept cordoned off from the public and taken to repatriation flights.

In their home countries, many will be taken onward to isolation facilities. Van Kerkhove said that the WHO is recommending “active monitoring and follow-up” for all passengers and crew for 42 days from their “last point of exposure” to a confirmed case.

Speaking to reporters in Tenerife on Sunday, Monica Garcia, Spain’s Minister of Health, said that all passengers on the ship continue to be “asymptomatic.”

Garcia said passengers from the Netherlands would be the next group to leave the vessel, with their plane also carrying German, Belgian, and Greek passengers, as well as part of the crew.

Once ashore, the passengers were expected to be transferred onto buses and taken to the local airport. Passengers from Turkey, France, ⁠the UK, and the US will then be evacuated, followed by six people from “Australia, New Zealand and Asia,” she said, as part of the last flight planned for Monday.

Also read: Hantavirus Outbreak: How MV Hondius Passengers Will Be Screened And Evacuated

WHO, CDC, ECDC Teams Monitoring Arrivals

In its latest briefing, the UN health body said emergency response teams, including experts from the Netherlands and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), are coordinating efforts to manage the situation and assess all passengers and crew upon arrival.

A WHO official is currently on board alongside two Dutch healthcare workers and an ECDC expert.

WHO Technical Officer Anais Legand said health teams will review the exposure history of every passenger and crew member to determine who may face a higher risk of infection.

Read More: WHO Says 6-Week Hantavirus Incubation Raises Concern, But No Epidemic Risk

Passengers will also be screened for symptoms such as fever, fatigue, or signs of illness.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said it plans to evacuate American passengers aboard the ship on a US government medical repatriation flight to Omaha, Nebraska.

The ongoing outbreak of hantavirus, a rodent-borne disease, among passengers aboard the luxury cruise ship MV Hondius has been linked to climate change, according to health experts.

So far, the outbreak has affected only people connected to the cruise ship, with eight reported cases, including three deaths. Six cases have been confirmed to be caused by the Andes strain of hantavirus.

The disease is expected to result in more cases as public health officials across 12 countries — including the United States, United Kingdom, Spain, and the Netherlands — continue contact tracing and screening efforts. In addition, the disease’s incubation period, which can last several weeks, may make screening more difficult.

According to the World Health Organization, an elderly Dutch couple may have brought the virus aboard after possibly contracting it through rodent exposure during a bird-watching tour near a landfill in Ushuaia, days before the ship departed from Argentina. Both the husband and wife later died.

Hantavirus Outbreak: Why It May be Linked To Climate Change

Experts have blamed climate change and habitat destruction for the rise in cases of the disease, which is usually caused by exposure to the urine or feces of infected rodents.

Rising temperatures, changing rainfall patterns, and habitat destruction are driving rodents closer to human populations, increasing the risk of hantavirus transmission through contaminated urine, droppings, or saliva.

“Climate change and rodents are closely linked, particularly because global warming creates conditions that favor the spread and survival of many rodent species, including rats. Rising temperatures make previously colder regions more suitable for rodents, allowing them to expand their geographical range into areas where they were once less common,” said Dr. Rajeev Jayadevan, convenor of the IMA research cell, in a statement to HealthandMe.

In general, colder regions tend to have fewer rats, but warming temperatures are changing that pattern.

“Increasing human interaction with wild environments, habitat destruction, the establishment of small urbanizations in rural areas, and the effects of climate change contribute to the appearance of cases outside historically endemic areas,” Argentina’s health ministry said in a statement.

Dr. Jayadevan added that higher temperatures can also make rodent reproductive cycles more efficient.

“Since rodents are mammals, warmer weather may allow them to reproduce more frequently within a year, leading to larger populations over time. Even a small increase in reproductive cycles can significantly boost rodent numbers on a community scale, especially when food supplies are abundant,” he said.

Also read: Hantavirus: Israel Confirms 1st Case as UK, Spain Probe Suspected Infections; Should You Be Worried?

Hantavirus: Flooding and Urbanization Raising Risks

Climate change also contributes to extreme weather events such as flooding, which can further increase human-rodent interaction.

Notably, floods may destroy crops and disrupt natural food sources, forcing rodents to migrate into homes and urban areas in search of food and shelter. This closer contact between humans and rodents can increase the risk of rodent-borne diseases spreading.

Dr. Ishwar Gilada, an infectious disease expert based in Mumbai, said that climate change, flooding, overcrowding, poor sanitation, rapid urbanization, and ecological disruption can all increase the risk of zoonotic infections, including hantavirus.

“Floods and heavy rainfall often force rodents into human settlements, while garbage accumulation, slums, warehouses, and poorly planned urban growth create ideal conditions for rodent breeding and human exposure,” Dr. Gilada said.

These conditions increase the likelihood of contact with contaminated urine or droppings.

Read More: Donald Trump Says Hantavirus Is 'Under Control'; Questions Grow Over CDC Research Cuts

‘One Health’ Approach Key to Future Preparedness

Dr. Gilada also highlighted the growing importance of the “One Health” approach, which recognizes the close connection between human, animal, and environmental health.

“Although hantavirus remains uncommon in India and is not currently considered a major public health threat, the broader lesson is the importance of long-term preparedness through improved sanitation, rodent control, environmental management, and stronger disease surveillance systems,” he said.