Using Actigraphy to Predict the Ecological Momentary Assessment of Mood, Fatigue, and Cognition in Older Adulthood: Mixed-Methods Study

Abstract

Background Sleep quality has been associated with cognitive and mood outcomes in otherwise healthy older adults. However, most studies have evaluated sleep quality as aggregate and mean measures, rather than addressing the impact of previous night’s sleep on next-day functioning. Objective This study aims to evaluate the ability of previous night’s sleep parameters on self-reported mood, cognition, and fatigue to understand short-term impacts of sleep quality on next-day functioning. Methods In total, 73 cognitively healthy older adults (19 males, 54 females) completed 7 days of phone-based self-report questions, along with 24-hour actigraph data collection. We evaluated a model of previous night’s sleep parameters as predictors of mood, fatigue, and perceived thinking abilities the following day. Results Previous night’s sleep predicted fatigue in the morning and midday, as well as sleepiness or drowsiness in the morning; however, sleep measures did not predict subjective report of mood or perceived thinking abilities the following day. Conclusions This study suggests that objectively measured sleep quality from the previous night may not have a direct or substantial relationship with subjective reporting of cognition or mood the following day, despite frequent patient reports. Continued efforts to examine the relationship among cognition, sleep, and everyday functioning are encouraged.

Depression Prediction by Using Ecological Momentary Assessment, Actiwatch Data, and Machine Learning: Observational Study on Older Adults Living Alone

“…However, our study did not clearly indicate that sleep efficiency was associated with the depression group because the sample size had low power to detect the significance ( P <.08). Comparing with the findings of previous studies [12,54], this discrepancy should be interpreted with caution because the previous studies measured sleep components once through self-report, whereas our study assessed daily sleep efficiency for 2 weeks through repeated measures using actigraphy. Older adults living alone may have more difficulty in the early detection of sleep disturbances than do those living with others because of the absence of a bedroom partner [55].…”

“…Our study findings confirmed group differences in daytime activity, light exposure in the late afternoon, and night-time sleep. Thus, we suggest the need to collect data throughout the day and identify features closely related to depression [12,45]. Third, we suggest using sensor data, such as Actiwatch or activity tracking, for monitoring purpose.…”

“…However, EMA allows individuals to report their momentary mood in the right now and here , multiple times in their real and familiar environment [9,11], rather than in artificial settings or laboratories. Thus, health care professionals can collect high ecologically valid data that are more specific to the older adult’s contextual situation and readily applicable to lifestyle modification [9,11,12].…”

Seeing through brain fog: disentangling the cognitive, physical, and mental health sequalae of COVID-19.

“…Third, how does the pattern of cognitive de cits observed following COVID-19 infection relate to aspects of mental health such as anxiety, depression and fatigue that may be a consequence of the disease process itself, or a more general effect of living during the time of a global pandemic? Research conducted prior to the worldwide spread of COVID-19 clearly established that associations exist between impaired cognitive function and both anxiety disorders 30 , and depression 31 , although the relationship between fatigue and speci c cognitive de cits seems rather less clear 32,33 . Several recent studies have reported an increased risk of psychiatric disturbance in patients recovering from COVID-19 20,34−36 , although others have reported no association between cognitive outcomes and psychiatric symptoms 25 , including anxiety 17,24 depression 17,24 and fatigue 24 .…”

Subjective cognitive abilities correlate with poor sleep among day‐shift and night‐shift nurses

“…These results also support the two-process model such that sufficient sleep recovery is needed for vigilant wakefulness and cognition throughout the day (Borbely, 1982). (Parsey & Schmitter-Edgecombe, 2019;Sella et al, 2019). There was also a lack of association with time in bed or sleep duration.…”