Characterizing Behavioral Activity Rhythms in Older Adults Using Actigraphy

Abstract

Wrist actigraphy has been used to assess sleep in older adult populations for nearly half a century. Over the years, the continuous raw activity data derived from actigraphy has been used for the characterization of factors beyond sleep/wake such as physical activity patterns and circadian rhythms. Behavioral activity rhythms (BAR) are useful to describe individual daily behavioral patterns beyond sleep and wake, which represent important and meaningful clinical outcomes. This paper reviews common rhythmometric approaches and summarizes the available data from the use of these different approaches in older adult populations. We further consider a new approach developed in our laboratory designed to provide graphical characterization of BAR for the observed behavioral phenomenon of activity patterns across time. We illustrate the application of this new approach using actigraphy data collected from a well-characterized sample of older adults (age 60+) with osteoarthritis (OA) pain and insomnia. Generalized additive models (GAM) were implemented to fit smoothed nonlinear curves to log-transformed aggregated actigraphy-derived activity measurements. This approach demonstrated an overall strong model fit (R2 = 0.82, SD = 0.09) and was able to provide meaningful outcome measures allowing for graphical and parameterized characterization of the observed activity patterns within this sample.

Sleep-wake circadian rhythm pattern in young adults by actigraphy during social isolation

“…According to Pépin et al 31 , the activity pattern did not appear to have a significant clinical impact on people’s activity compared to the pre-pandemic period. M10 was in line with L5 values, indicating that participants presented slight movement intensity during the time of less activity that usually occurs during the sleep period 32 , agreeing with previous studies 23 , 30 . Differences in circadian rhythm between clusters can be explained because during the social isolation the first one had a little bit to exposure to light during the early hours of the morning than the second one, which can lead to the delay of the biological clock, since sunlight has been considered as an important zeitgeberts 33 , 34 .…”

The Effect of Bright Light Treatment on Rest–Activity Rhythms in People with Dementia: A 24-Week Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial

“…In the present study, we investigated numerous common indicators of RAR, but the optimal way to capture RAR is a topic of continuing research [ 2 , 39 ]. The two approaches used in the present study yielded correlated, but not equivalent, estimates of RAR ( Table 3 ).…”

“…Previous research has utilized a variety of methods for characterizing RAR, with non-parametric approaches and cosine-based models being popular [ 2 , 39 ]. As the standard cosine model often shows poor fit with the true shape of the RAR [ 39 , 40 , 41 ], RAR indicators were computed using a non-parametric approach [ 42 ], as well as an extended cosine model [ 41 ].…”

Profiles of Accelerometry-Derived Physical Activity Are Related to Perceived Physical Fatigability in Older Adults

“…The RAR is the downstream behavioral manifestation of the alignment or misalignment of several circadian processes. Older adults are susceptible to age-related changes in RARs [ 11 , 12 ]. These changes include: diminished melatonin and cortisol levels, hormones critical for dictating the strength of the RAR [ 13 ] and shifts in the timing of circadian patterns [ 14 ].…”