JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Current longitudinal insomnia assessments are subjective. Accurate insomnia assessment requires objective, longitudinal, naturalistic measures. Objective, ecologically-valid, longitudinal sleep measurements are needed to help identify and manage insomnia at a clinical and population level. A potential solution is consumer sleep technologies which are growing in popularity but rarely used clinically.

Objective:

We sought to prove the clinical utility of a contactless, radiofrequency-based device by demonstrating the ability to differentiate individuals with insomnia from healthy good sleepers.

Methods:

Individuals with chronic insomnia (n=83) and healthy, good sleeper controls (n=29) underwent 8 consecutive weeks of sleep monitoring using an objective, contactless, radiofrequency-based sleep monitoring device in the naturalistic home environment. Objective sleep variables were quantified as daily means and standard deviations.

Results:

On average, individuals with chronic insomnia had reduced sleep efficiency, increased sleep latency, and increased intermittent wakefulness as compared to healthy, good sleeper controls. Similarly for standard deviations, those with chronic insomnia demonstrated greater night-to-night variability in sleep efficiency, sleep latency, and intermittent wakefulness as compared to good sleeper controls (all p<0.01).

Conclusions:

We show a radiofrequency-based, contactless sleep monitoring device deployed longitudinally in the subjects’ typical sleep environment accurately distinguished healthy good sleepers from those with insomnia. Importantly, we show that night-to-night variability in objective sleep measures is a hallmark of the chronic insomnia phenotype. Clinical Trial: Naturalistic Monitoring and Treatment of Chronic Insomnia, https://www.clinicaltrials.gov, NCT04013321