Objective: To evaluate the feasibility and usability of a commercially available wearable device for long-term monitoring of sleep patterns in Parkinson’s disease (PD) and how these interact with cognitive variables.

Background: Sleep disturbances (SD) are among the most common non-motor symptoms in PD, affecting up to 90% of people with PD (PwPD) and strongly impact quality of life for both patients and caregivers. SD may also affect cognition particularly executive functions and attention. Polysomnography remains the gold standard for assessing SD but is limited by its invasiveness and poor suitability for large-scale or long-term monitoring. Wearable devices offer an ecological and scalable approach for monitoring sleep patterns over extended periods.

Method: 15 PwPD wore a Polar Ignite 2 smartwatch continuously for 16 weeks. Baseline assessments included comprehensive neuropsychological, clinical, and motor evaluations. Usability was assessed through the System Usability Scale (SUS) and feasibility via completion rates. Correlations and regression analyses explored associations between sleep parameters and clinical, cognitive, and motor variables.

Results: 14 participants completed the monitoring phase; one participant withdrew due to hospitalization. SUS scores indicated high usability (M=79; SD=12.15). Three participants reported  REM sleep behaviour symptoms, and one reported sleep fragmentation. Continuous monitoring revealed relatively stable mean sleep duration (M= 6.45 h SD=1.03) but frequent nocturnal interruptions (M=20.10; SD=5.33). Altered sleep patterns were significantly associated with executive function and attention deficits, including correlations between total sleep duration and TMT-B scores (p<0.05), and between interruptions and executive function composite scores (p<0.005). Trend-level associations were observed with attention (p=0.05) and memory (p=0.06).

Conclusion: These preliminary findings support the feasibility and usability of commercially available wearable device for long-term monitoring of sleep patterns in PwPD. Continuous monitoring over 16 weeks allowed precise characterization of sleep patterns and revealed frequent nocturnal interruptions despite relatively stable sleep duration. Associations with executive and attentional deficits suggest that digital sleep measures may serve as digital biomarkersto study cognitive and functional outcomes in PD and inform personalized interventions.

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MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/sleep-patterns-and-cognitive-function-in-parkinsons-disease-a-longitudinal-pilot-study/