Due to a globally aging population, there is a growing demand for smart home technology which can serve to monitor the health and safety of adults. Therefore, sleep monitoring has emerged as a crucial tool to improve the health and autonomy of adults. While polysomnography (PSG) is an effective and accurate tool for sleep monitoring, it is obtrusive as the user must wear the instruments during the experiment. Therefore, there has been a growing interest in deploying unobtrusive sleep monitoring devices, specifically for long-term patient monitoring. This thesis proposes multiple algorithms applicable to unobtrusive pressure sensitive sensor arrays in order to assess sleep quality. These algorithms can be listed as adaptive movement detection, sensor data fusion and bed occupancy detection. This thesis also investigates long-term sleep pattern changes from previously recorded data. The methods developed in the thesis can be of interest for future clinical remote patient monitoring systems.

Disturbed sleep is common in asthma and impairs quality of life in these patients. Melatonin has sleep-inducing activity and reportedly affects smooth muscle tone and inflammation. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of melatonin on sleep in female patients with stable mild and moderate asthma. Twenty consecutive patients were recruited into the study. After a two-week run-in period, they were randomized to receive melatonin 3 mg (n= 10) or placebo for four weeks. Sleep quality and daytime somnolence were assessed by the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index and the Epworth Sleepiness Scale, respectively. Pulmonary function was assessed by spirometry. Use of relief medication, asthma symptoms and morning and evening peak expiratory flow rate (PEFR) were recorded daily. Melatonin treatment, but not placebo, significantly improved subjective quality of sleep (p = 0,034), sleep latency (p = 0.031), sleep duration (p = 0,034), sleep disturbances (p = 0,034), daytime dysfunction (p = 0,025) and subjective daytime somnolence (p = 0,028). No significant difference in asthma symptoms, use of relief medication and daily PEFR was found between the two groups. We conclude that melatonin can improve sleep in patients with asthma without significantly affecting pulmonary function or asthma symptoms. Further studies looking into long-term effects of melatonin on airway inflammation and bronchial hyperresponsiveness are needed before melatonin can be safely recommended in asthmatic patients. / AlteraÃÃes do sono sÃo comuns na asma, dificultando o manuseio desta condiÃÃo e reduzindo a qualidade de vida dos seus portadores. A melatonina (MLT) possui aÃÃo indutora do sono e apresenta baixa incidÃncia de efeitos adversos. Existem relatos de que a MLT tambÃm possui aÃÃo sobre o tÃnus da musculatura lisa e exerce atividade imunomoduladora, potencialmente Ãteis no tratamento da asma. O objetivo principal deste estudo foi avaliar os efeitos da administraÃÃo noturna da MLT sobre o sono e a funÃÃo pulmonar de pacientes com asma persistente leve e moderada. O estudo foi um ensaio clÃnico randomizado, duplo-cego, controlado por placebo e duraÃÃo total de seis semanas. Vinte pacientes do sexo feminino foram submetidas a um perÃodo de prÃ-tratamento de duas semanas com beclometasona na dose de 1000 mcg/dia e salbutamol quando necessÃrio, ambos por via inalatÃria. ApÃs esse perÃodo, foram randomizadas para receber MLT na dose de 3 mg (n= 10) ou placebo (n= 10) duas horas antes do horÃrio habitual de sono, por quatro semanas. A qualidade do sono e a sonolÃncia diurna foram avaliadas pelo Ãndice de Qualidade de Sono de Pittsburgh (IQSP) e pela Escala de SonolÃncia de Epworth (ESE) respectivamente, enquanto a funÃÃo pulmonar foi avaliada por espirometria. Foram realizadas medidas domiciliares diurnas e noturnas do pico de fluxo expiratÃrio. Um registro diÃrio de sintomas de asma e de uso de broncodilatador inalatÃrio foi mantido durante todo o perÃodo. ApÃs a fase de tratamento, a qualidade do sono, a sonolÃncia diurna e a funÃÃo pulmonar foram reavaliadas. Os resultados demonstram que o grupo que utilizou a MLT, ao contrÃrio do grupo placebo, apresentou melhora da qualidade subjetiva do sono (p= 0,034), da latÃncia do sono (p= 0,031), da duraÃÃo do sono (p= 0,034), dos distÃrbios do sono (p= 0,034), das disfunÃÃes diurnas (p= 0,025) e do grau de sonolÃncia diurna subjetiva (p= 0,028). Nenhuma diferenÃa estatisticamente significante foi observada nos sintomas de asma, no uso de broncodilatador para alÃvio de sintomas e nas medidas diÃrias de PFE entre os grupos MLT e placebo. Em conclusÃo, a MLT melhora a qualidade do sono e reduz a sonolÃncia diurna em pacientes com asma persistente leve e moderada, sem produzir efeitos detectÃveis sobre sintomas ou sobre a funÃÃo pulmonar. Estudos adicionais sobre os efeitos a longo prazo da MLT na inflamaÃÃo das vias aÃreas e na hiper-responsividade brÃnquica, sÃo necessÃrios antes que esta substÃncia possa ser recomendada com seguranÃa em pacientes asmÃticos.

The thesis describes investigations into two contrasting aspects of Slow Wave Sleep (SWS). The first is a laboratory based study of the effects of passive heating on the subsequent SWS of six healthy subjects, and the second employs home sleep recording techniques to investigate the prevalence and characteristics of the 'alpha sleep anomaly' in volunteers from the local community.

Introduction: Osteoarthritis (OA), a degenerative musculoskeletal disease affecting joints, is characterised by pain and poor physical functioning, resulting in poor health related quality of life (HRQoL), emotional well-being and quality of sleep. There are few studies in this area in Taiwan. Aim and objectives: The aim of the study was to investigate how quality of sleep impacts on quality of life in individuals with OA in Taiwan. Specific objectives were to measure quality of sleep; to measure pain, physical function, emotional health and quality of life, and investigate their associations with quality of sleep; to investigate predictors of quality of sleep; and to investigate the association between subjective sleep perceptions and objective sleep outcomes. Methods: In a cross-sectional study, 192 OA patients aged over 40, diagnosed by radiology, fluent in Mandarin or Taiwanese, and residing in the community were recruited from musculoskeletal or rehabilitation outpatient departments in a university hospital in Taiwan from October 2010 to March 2011. A supervised self-completion questionnaire was used to collect data. Four validated Mandarin Chinese versions of questionnaires were used: the Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC) to measure pain and physical functioning; the Short Form-36 Health Survey (SF-36) to measure HRQoL; the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) to measure emotional health; and the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) to measure subjective quality of sleep. A sub-sample of 30 individuals was recruited to measure objective sleep quality using an Actigraph wrist monitor. Data were encoded, entered onto computer and analysed with SPSS 16.0 software. Results: Most participants had poor subjective quality of sleep (70.3%), but only 19.8% were taking sleep medication. Global quality of sleep was poorer in participants who were older, female, had a low educational level and had more severe OA. Pain was mild-to-moderate but 47.4% and 25.5% of participants reported no or poor self-management of OA symptoms respectively, and 66.7% never used a walking aid. Poor quality of sleep was associated with pain, poor physical function, anxiety, depression and low scores on the physical and mental components of HRQoL (Pearson correlations 0.27 to 0.87), although most participants did not present problems with anxiety or depression. Regression showed that taking sleep medication, SF-36 role physical and social functioning, high HADS anxiety, a lack of secondary education, high WOMAC pain and taking analgesics significantly contributed to poor global quality of sleep. Path analysis identified four components potentially causing poor quality of sleep: an OA component (pain and physical function), a sleep medication component, a psychological component (anxiety) and a sociodemographic component (low education and poor social functioning), where being female was causally related to the last two. From the objective measurements, participants overestimated the actual time to fall asleep and underestimated their sleep duration and efficiency. Those with poor subjective quality of sleep were woken more often during the night and awake for longer during the night (both p < 0.027). Conclusion: Global quality of sleep was poor in individuals with OA in Taiwan; pain, physical function and emotional health negatively influenced quality of sleep and HRQoL. A hypothesised causal model for quality of sleep had components related not only to OA but also to psychological distress, socio-demographics and taking sleep medication. Objective measurements indicated that sleep disturbance was associated with poor perceived quality of sleep. The study suggests that better support and guidance on self-management of OA in Taiwan is required to allow patients more control over their health, well being and quality of sleep.

One in three Americans, an estimated 83.6 million adults, suffers from sleep deprivation getting less than the recommended seven hours of minimum nightly sleep. Sleep deprivation can lead to increased risk for obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, stroke, mental distress, coronary heart disease and early death. 1 A prescribed work day and pressure to meet deadlines lead to impaired sleep quality and duration. As the rate of sleep deprivation increases sleep patterns should be reconsidered. Before the 20th century, the light-dark cycle of the earth's rotation dictated daily activity patterns. Modern technology increased the availability of electricity. Light-dark cycles became individually controlled and people gained the ability to stay awake through the night. Social pressures and the rise of technology further contribute to an overall decrease in sleep. The pressure to meet deadlines, participate in social activities and more have led people to impair sleep quality and duration. Operation on individual schedules often results in people cutting back on sleep if they lack flexibility. Innovations in technology advance workplace trends that promote remote communications and flexible schedules, increasing productivity and employee well-being. These trends require an architectural response centered on the needs of the occupants. Through the use of technology and design the everyday work-live environment adjusts to incorporate and encourage sleep based on internal rhythms. This thesis explores how an office building can transform to enable fluidity of activities according to individual 24 hour cycles to create a productive workplace. / 0 / SPK / specialcollections@tulane.edu

Proper regulation of sleep and metabolism are critical to the survival of all organisms. In humans, dysregulation of sleep is linked to metabolic syndrome, including hypertension, hyperglycemia and hyperlipidemia. However, the mechanisms regulating interactions between sleep and metabolism are poorly understood. Although the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, bears little anatomical resemblance to humans, it shares similar genetics essential in understanding normal development and disease in humans. From humans to flies, many disease-related genes and pathways are highly conserved, rendering the fruit fly ideal to understanding the interactions between sleep and metabolism. Therefore, using the fruit fly provides a framework for understanding how genes function between sleep and metabolism. During starvation, both humans and rats reduce their sleep. Similarly, previous studies have shown that fruit flies also suppress sleep to forage for food, further showing that sleep and metabolism are intricately tied to one another and that they are highly conserved across species. To further explore the interactions between sleep and metabolism, I have conducted multiple genetic screens to identify novel regulators of sleep-metabolism interactions. These experiments led to the identification of the mRNA binding protein translin (trsn) as being required for starvation-induced sleep suppression. A second screen that targeted metabolic genes from a genome-wide association study identified the ion channel accessory protein uncoordinated 79 (unc79) as a critical regulator of both sleep duration and starvation resistance. The genes function in different regions of the brain and suggest complex neural circuitry is likely to underlie regulation of sleep metabolism interactions. Taken together, a mechanistic understanding of how different genes function to regulate sleep in flies will further our understanding of how sleep and metabolism is regulated in humans. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (PhD)--Florida Atlantic University, 2021. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Children with anxiety frequently experience sleep-related problems (SRPs) such as longer sleep onset latency, sleep dependence, and sleep anxiety. Despite the significant mental and physical health consequences of SRPs and the high prevalence of SRPs in school-aged children with anxiety, little research has examined sleep treatments for this population. This project utilized a single case multiple baseline design to evaluate the feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary efficacy of a four-session parent training intervention for reducing SRPs in youth with anxiety. Participants were ten children (M=9.6 years, range 8-12 years, 8 female) who met criteria for an anxiety disorder as well as a diagnosis of chronic insomnia. Throughout the study, parents tracked subjective child sleep onset latency (subjective SOL) using a daily sleep diary, children wore actigraphy monitors to capture daily objective sleep onset latency (objective SOL), parents completed a daily parent-child sleep interaction questionnaire, and parents and children completed qualitative interviews at post-treatment. Additional assessment of SRPs occurred at baseline, post-treatment, and one-month follow up. Results of the study showed that it was feasible to design and implement a four-session parent training intervention designed to treat SRPs in school-aged children with anxiety, and that this intervention was acceptable to participants. Consistent with hypotheses, the majority of participants (n=9) no longer met criteria for chronic insomnia at post-treatment or follow-up (n=6), the frequency of SRPs was significantly lower at these time points, and the majority of participants (n=7) reported significant reductions in subjective SOL. However, only three participants showed significant reductions in objective SOL. Qualitative results helped to further clarify this discrepancy by demonstrating that participants experienced a shift in sleep perception across treatment (e.g., before treatment, normal objective SOL lengths were experienced as subjectively longer due to anxiety). Both quantitative and qualitative results demonstrated that parent behaviors (e.g., parental accommodation) and parent-child interactions (e.g., sleep dependence) both improved during the study. Future research should investigate changes in parent behaviors and parent-child interactions as potential mechanisms of treatment.

Sparse thalamocortical cell population synchronicity during sleep spindle oscillations has been hypothesized to promote the integration of hippocampal memory information into associated neocortical representations 1. We asked the question of whether sparse or rhythmic activity in thalamocortical cells of the reuniens nucleus influence memory consolidation and cognitive flexibility during learning after sleep. For this study, I designed a novel attentional set-shifting task and incorporated optogenetics with closed-loop stimulation in sleeping rats to investigate the effects of sparse (nonrhythmic) or rhythmic spindle-like (~10Hz) activity in thalamic cells of the reuniens nucleus on learning and cognitive flexibility. We show that, as predicted, post-sleep setshifting performance improved after sleep with non-rhythmic optogenetic stimulation in the thalamic nucleus reuniens relative to rhythmic optogenetic stimulation. While both non-rhythmic and rhythmic optogenetic stimulation led to an increase in perseverative errors, only non-rhythmic optogenetic stimulation showed effects of learning from errors, which correlated with sleep, and which ultimately had a net benefit in set-shifting performance compared to rhythmic optogenetic stimulation and the control group. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2020. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

No description available.

Sleep disorders are highly prevalent in children and adolescents, affecting approximately 25-40% of this population. Questions about sleep are among the most frequent concerns that parents raise to their child’s pediatric medical provider. Behavioral treatments are the empirically supported treatments for addressing behavioral disordered sleep, and pediatric medical providers often endorse using such strategies. However, given the time constraints of primary care visits, such strategies are delivered in a very brief format. Whether or not these recommendations result in a change in the child’s disordered sleep symptoms has not been explored. Further, it is likely that this brief recommendation format is effective for some patients but not others. For example, children with comorbid neurodevelopmental conditions, severe sleep problems, and anxiety are less likely to respond to brief sleep interventions, and, therefore, may require a more comprehensive, time-intensive behavioral intervention. The current study aimed to explore factors related to the efficacy of a brief behavioral intervention provided via telehealth. Thirteen parents completed all portions of the study. Three were parents of children between the ages of 8 to 15 years and 10 were parents of children between the ages of 4 to 7 years (M = 6.8; SD = 2.7). All parents identified as White mothers. All children were also identified as White with 38.5% being female. Due to small sample size, quantitative analyses were not appropriate, so a qualitative examination of the data was conducted to explore relationships among participant demographics, sleep hygiene behaviors, sleep knowledge, sleep symptom severity, anxiety symptoms, and effects of the intervention. Results indicated that 37.50% of parents accurately assessed whether their child had problematic sleep. Minor variations in sleep knowledge were observed between parents who accurately identified their child’s sleep problems and those who did not (7.67 and 6.40 out of 10, respectively). Overall, participants had an average initial sleep knowledge score of 6.68, an average follow up sleep knowledge score of 7.31, and an average change in knowledge score of 0.62. Regarding effects of the intervention on sleep symptom severity, the average initial sleep symptom severity score was 50.25, the average follow up sleep severity score was 48.77, and the average change in sleep severity score was -2.00. An examination of sleep hygiene characteristics highlighted that while 81.25% of participants endorsed having a bedtime routine, almost 70% reported that the routine included an electronic device. Differences in initial sleep symptom severity and sleep knowledge scores were noted between participants who did and did not include electronic devices in their bedtime routines. The clinical implications of these findings are discussed further. Differences in intervention efficacy between participants with and without ADHD was also examined, but differences were not apparent. Intervention acceptability and feasibility were also examined. The current study demonstrated that the intervention was feasible to deliver for most participants within 10 minutes and, therefore, would be conducive to a primary care setting. Additionally, parents reported high levels of satisfaction with the content, understandability, and comprehensiveness of the treatment, which is encouraging for parents’ willingness to utilize the intervention if it was available to them. This study acted as an important initial step to determining the feasibility and acceptability of a brief behavioral sleep intervention. Clinical implications and future directions are discussed.