A Pilot Study to Determine the Consistency of Simultaneous Sleep Actigraphy Measurements Comparing All Four Limbs of Patients with Parkinson Disease

• Author / Creator

  Prasad,Vineet

• Background: Wrist actigraphy is a form of objective sleep measurement that has gained a central role in research and clinical settings. Although actigraph data is available for sleep disorders concerning medical and neurobehavioral disorders, the literature identifies that sensitivity of actigraph data in studies of persons with Parkinson disease (PD) are not robust. Guidelines for actigraphy recommend placing the monitor on the non-dominant wrist. However, this potentially can be the most involved limb for someone with PD, and so alternative placement would be preferred. To date, there are few studies on sleep actigraphy use for adults with PD, and specifically, no research to explore the degree of variability in actigraph findings when comparing simultaneous readings from all four limbs (upper/lower, dominant/non-dominant limb).
  Aim: This study aimed to determine the degree of sleep actigraph score variation in persons with PD when actigraph placed simultaneously on all four limbs.
  Methods: Four participants were recruited through the University of Alberta Faculty of Rehabilitation student-lead teaching clinics and wore a sleep actigraph (Actigraph Wgt3X-BT) on each limb for seven nights. The within-participant data from the four actigraphs were compared to determine the degree of consistency.
  Results: We found that all participants’ sleep efficiency (SE) and total sleep time (TST) scores were higher in the lower limb than upper limb. There was no notable difference seen in sleep variables between the dominant and non- dominant arm.

  Conclusion: We concluded that simultaneous actigraphy measurement did not show notable variation between dominant and non-dominant arms. However, a discrepancy was seen between upper and lower limbs actigraph scores. Further study is warranted to develop guidelines for sleep actigraphy use in this population.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Parkinson disease
  • Actigraph
  • Assessment tool

• Graduation date

  Fall 2018

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Master of Science

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R3PZ52318

• License

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