Orthosomnia: Are Some Patients Taking the Quantified Self Too Far?

The use of wearable sleep tracking devices is rapidly expanding and provides an opportunity to engage individuals in monitoring of their sleep patterns. However, there are a growing number of patients who are seeking treatment for self-diagnosed sleep disturbances such as insufficient sleep duration...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of clinical sleep medicine 2017-02, Vol.13 (2), p.351-354
Main Authors: Baron, Kelly Glazer, Abbott, Sabra, Jao, Nancy, Manalo, Natalie, Mullen, Rebecca
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Actigraphy - instrumentation
Adult
Aged
Case Reports
Cognitive Therapy
Female
Humans
Lost to Follow-Up
Male
Reproducibility of Results
Sleep Initiation and Maintenance Disorders - diagnosis
Sleep Initiation and Maintenance Disorders - therapy
Treatment Outcome
Citations: Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The use of wearable sleep tracking devices is rapidly expanding and provides an opportunity to engage individuals in monitoring of their sleep patterns. However, there are a growing number of patients who are seeking treatment for self-diagnosed sleep disturbances such as insufficient sleep duration and insomnia due to periods of light or restless sleep observed on their sleep tracker data. The patients' inferred correlation between sleep tracker data and daytime fatigue may become a perfectionistic quest for the ideal sleep in order to optimize daytime function. To the patients, sleep tracker data often feels more consistent with their experience of sleep than validated techniques, such as polysomnography or actigraphy. The challenge for clinicians is balancing educating patients on the validity of these devices with patients' enthusiasm for objective data. Incorporating the use of sleep trackers into cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia will be important as use of these devices is rapidly expanding among our patient population.
ISSN:1550-9389
1550-9397
DOI:10.5664/jcsm.6472