First Week at Mayo

Hey, All!

Some say the best way to learn is by doing, and that's exactly what I did this week. For four days, I wore an Actiwatch--the device we used to measure sleep quality--and had my own sleep log for three nights. The database was created by analyzing any movement from my non-dominant arm through a built in accelerometer on a minute by minute basis. The Actiwatch also had few other measures, such as a light detector (measured in lux), and skin temperature indicator, but for this research, we focused primarily on the movement index as the key component. By analyzing the data points through my night schedule, I could see how much I moved around each minute for three nights; however, moving during sleep is completely natural, thus posing the question of what movement is actually significant movement. To determine which points signified an actual awakening, I compared each specific movement to a certain awakening, which included 4 consecutive minutes with movement indexes ranging from 100-950. The experiment did not go flawlessly, as in my first night with the Actiwatch, I took it off in my sleep, as I was not used to wearing it, and on the fourth night, the battery of the device died, thus only giving us two nights worth of  concrete data. I was not able to find a guaranteed minimum threshold that was an awakening yet, but in future weeks I should be able to, and then compare that data with the dog's movement data and see if there is any correlation.

To prepare for the data analysis, I've been reading up on the features of actigraphy compared to known methods of measuring sleep quality, such as an electroencephalogram (EEG). I will keep you all posted in case any movement towards finding the smallest significant data point is made!

Thank you!

Gustavo