Actigraphy Sleep Assessments

Regardless of whether you have reported a sleep problem, we would like to look at your sleep/wake behaviour as a reference to your QEEG (Quantitative EEG) Assessment (i.e. your brain activity.) Patients who report difficulty with mood or attention quite frequently have a sleep problem. With Actigraphy, we can understand the extent of this problem or rule it out as a contributor to your symptoms or feelings.

Just wear the wristband for 7 days so we can collect continuous data of your activity, sleep / wake behaviour. We only ask you to push the blue button on the wrist-band when you intend to go to sleep and when you wake up. This will make a marker on your “Actigraphy chart” (which we will generate for you once you have handed the device back into the clinic).  While the Actigraphy data will show us when you likely went to sleep and when you wake up, by pressing this button this is just a way to cross-check the data.

If you forget to press the button, do not panic. We can still make an assessment.

The difference with Actigraphy is that it has a light sensor to track your exposure to blue light in the evenings. This is explained in the next question.

Smartphones, tablets, desktop computers, LED an fluorescent lamps emit a high spectrum blue light which the human brain more naturally needs to be exposed to during daylight hours. Overexposure to blue spectrum light in the evenings, and especially before bedtime, counteracts the body’s release of sleep-inducing melatonin. This impacts sleep quality and sleep duration, thereby affecting mood and attention levels.

By tracking blue light exposure against your sleep and wake patterns, we can see if the light in your environment is affecting your sleep.

Visualizing our sleep / wake patterns and general activity patterns can be an eye-opening experience. There are different types of sleep problems, for example people who show lengths of restlessness before falling asleep (this is called “sleep onset latency”), or people who fall asleep but appear to be restless during the night. These differences may explain what we see in the QEEG assessment.

Furthermore, by looking at your exposure to blue light, this is a way to educate you on the importance of being aware of exposure, and to introduce new strategies and behaviours which can help you achieve good sleep. The light sensor can also let us know if there is too much blue light in your bedroom, for example.