Sleep in Parkinson's disease: a comparison of actigraphy and subjective measures

Sleep disturbances are common in Parkinson's disease (PD). Actigraphy has emerged as an alternative to polysomnography to measure sleep, raising the question of its ability to capture sleep quality in PD patients. Our aim was to compare self-report data with actigraphic data. Thirty non-demented individuals with PD and 14 normal control participants (NC) were included. Sleep was measured using 24-h wrist actigraphy over a seven day period, during which time participants kept a sleep diary. Subjective sleep and arousal questionnaires included the Parkinson's Disease Sleep Scale and Epworth Sleepiness Scale. Patients with PD presented with more sleep problems than NC. In NC, none of the actigraphic sleep variables were related to any of the self-report measures of sleep. In PD, scores on subjective sleep measures correlated with actigraphy-derived estimates of sleep quality. Our results suggest that actigraphy is an appropriate method of measuring sleep quality in PD.