Sleep research recording methods
Philip N. Murphy in The Routledge International Handbook of Psychobiology, 2018
According to the most recent authoritative reviews (Sadeh, 2011) and professional consensus statements (Ancoli-Israel et al., 2015; Morgenthaler et al., 2007), actigraphy shows reasonable levels of validity and reliability when used with healthy individuals with relatively normal sleep patterns. Validity among those with poor sleep or sleep disorders is less certain. Overall, the empirical literature supports the notion that actigraphy is sensitive for detecting sleep and is useful for identifying unique sleep patterns (i.e. specifically those characteristic of circadian rhythm disorders). The most significant problem with actigraphy, though, is the technology’s inability to accurately identify awakenings within sleep periods. This limitation is particularly relevant when studying disorders, especially with insomnia, which is characterized by participants lying awake without moving for prolonged periods, so care should be taken to use appropriate devices and algorithms (Marino et al., 2013). Though its validity is not always exacting, actigraphy is reliable in adults, which makes it well suited for accurately quantifying changes within individuals over time, such as in developmental studies or in response to behavioral and other treatment effects (Aili, Åström-Paulsson, Stoetzer, Svartengren, & Hillert, 2016).
Sleep, dreams, and athletic performance
Michael Kellmann, Jürgen Beckmann in Sport, Recovery, and Performance, 2017
An alternative method for assessing objective sleep data from an individual is actigraphy measured by wrist activity monitors. An activity monitor is a small accelerometer which is sensitive to movement direction and intensity, often worn on the nondominant wrist. The basic idea about actigraphy is that movement is correlated with wakefulness and long periods of inactivity are correlated with sleep (Sargent, Lastella, Halson, & Roach, 2016). Activity monitors have the advantage that they are suitable for use in the field because they are easy to use for participants. However, they are limited as they cannot truly distinguish sleep and wakefulness, and even more so they are not able to distinguish different sleep stages (e.g., Marino et al., 2013). The question about the validity of actigraphy measures have been investigated in different studies with different populations and generally sleep measures with wrist actigraphy compared to polysomnography suffer from specificity, e.g., sleep corresponds to the proportion of epochs PSG-scored as wake epochs that are correctly classified as wake epochs by actigraphy (Marino et al., 2013).
Sleep–Wake Disorders
Philip B. Gorelick, Fernando D. Testai, Graeme J. Hankey, Joanna M. Wardlaw in Hankey's Clinical Neurology, 2020
Sleep log and/or diary for at least 7 days is recommended prior to and during the course of active treatment. PSG and MSLT testing are not routinely indicated in the evaluation of chronic insomnia. PSG may be useful when there is a question of interrupted sleep due to sleep-disordered breathing, a movement disorder, parasomnia, nocturnal epilepsy, or in cases of treatment failure. Actigraphy, a device that is typically worn on the wrist to estimate sleep and wake activity by recording movements can be used in patients with unreliable sleep log or when a circadian disorder is suspected.21 Personal wearable monitoring devices are also increasingly available, however, the data to support their use in sleep assessments are limited at this time.
Block the light and sleep well: Evening blue light filtration as a part of cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia
Published in Chronobiology International, 2020
Karolina Janků, Michal Šmotek, Eva Fárková, Jana Kopřivová
Actigraphy is a noninvasive wristwatch-like device recording sleep and wakefulness patterns. It measures physical activity throughout the day. The movements reflect the phase of wakefulness, their absence reflects a period of sleep. Several studies have already demonstrated its sensitivity and clinical use in an objective measurement of treatment response in patients with chronic insomnia (Vallieres and Morin 2003). For the current study, the MotionWatch 8 (CamNtech Ltd., Cambridge, UK) actigraphic watch was used. Patients received the devices at the beginning of CBT-I and were asked to press the event marker every time they went in or out of bed. Participants wore actigraphs on their non-dominant wrist. Data were recorded continuously for six consecutive weeks before they were downloaded and analyzed by a researcher blinded to the experimental condition using MotionWare 1.4 (CamNtech). In the analyses of records, the recommended algorithm for sleep scoring every 60 s epoch was used. The time in bed period was determined by either event markers or sleep diaries. The extracted outcomes were the same as for sleep diaries, i.e. average SOL, TST, WASO, and SE per week for baseline and post-treatment comparison, including both free days and working days, as the sleep restriction regime set was the same for free- and working days.
Objective sleep outcomes 20 years after traumatic brain injury in childhood
Published in Disability and Rehabilitation, 2020
Edith N. Botchway, Celia Godfrey, Christian L. Nicholas, Stephen Hearps, Vicki Anderson, Cathy Catroppa
Actigraphy refers to the use of a validated wrist watch-like device for sleep evaluation. It is a surrogate method of sleep assessment which correlates with key PSG metrics [22,24]. Compared to the PSG, actigraphy is a non-invasive, ecologically adaptable, and a cost-effective tool, which allows consecutive assessment of sleep across several days [23,24]. Actigraphy affords valuable insights into differences in patterns of weekday and weekend sleep [25,26], which are considered essential for detecting sleep compensatory behavior [27]. Actigraphy also yields several objective sleep parameters useful for the assessment of insomnia-related sleep disturbances including: sleep duration (length of time spent asleep from sleep onset to sleep offset), sleep onset latency (SOL, how long it takes to fall asleep), wake after sleep onset (WASO, time spent awake after falling asleep), and sleep efficiency (the ratio of total time spent asleep relative to total time in bed).
Human chronotype: Comparison of questionnaires and wrist-worn actigraphy
Published in Chronobiology International, 2022
Jakub Schneider, Eva Fárková, Eduard Bakštein
Actigraphy is a popular method of estimating sleep and circadian rhythms patterns. As we have shown in this study, longer-term recordings of 3 or more weeks of duration may be used as an objective evaluation of the chronotype and show good agreement with the MCTQ-MSFsc and MEQ questionnaires traditionally used to determine the chronotype. The Acrophase from cosinor analysis and MSFscacti estimated from automatically detected sleep periods were the best features for chronotyping. In all cases, the actigraphy-derived chronotype showed a more conservative estimate (closer to the sample mean) than its questionnaire-based counterpart, suggesting a tendency among the participants to overestimate the extremity of their behavior. Our study also highlighted the distinction between the idealized MEQ scores with high stability over an extended period of time and moderate predictability via actigraphy; the MCTQ-MSFsc, which showed high predictability via actigraphy and lower stability over time; and the MCTQ-SLJ, which was both highly variable over time and hard to predict from actigraphy.
Related Knowledge Centers
- Circadian Rhythm
- Circadian Rhythm Sleep Disorder
- Handedness
- Insomnia
- Polysomnography
- Somnolence
- NON-Invasive Procedure
- Multiple Sleep Latency Test
- Restless Legs Syndrome
- Pharmacology