Is disruption of sleep quality a consequence of severe Covid-19 infection? A case-series examination

ABSTRACT

The Covid-19 outbreak put enormous stress on the health system worldwide, and objective data to handle the emergency are still needed. We aimed to objectively assess the consequence of severe symptoms of Covid-19 infection on sleep quality through wrist actigraphy monitoring of four patients during the sub-acute recovery stage of the disease. The sleep of those patients who had experienced the most severe respiratory symptoms and who had needed prolonged intensive care unit (ICU) stay showed lower Sleep Efficiency and Immobility Time and higher Fragmentation Index compared to those patients who had experienced only mild respiratory symptoms and not requiring ICU stay. Wrist actigraphy assessment provided important clinical information about the sleep and activity levels of Covid-19 patients during the post-acute rehabilitation management.

KEYWORDS:

• Sleep
• coronavirus
• PSQI
• actigraphy
• SARS-CoV-2
• circadian Rhythm
• rehabilitation

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the patients for their participation in the study and the nurse staff of the IRCCS Istituto Ortopedico Galeazzi for their valuable support during the study procedures.

Declaration of interest statement

The authors report no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Italian Ministry of Health (Ricerca Corrente)