A Review of Approaches for Sleep Quality Analysis

Abstract

Sleep quality is directly related to overall wellness and can reveal symptoms of several diseases. However, the term 'sleep quality' still lacks a definitional consensus and is commonly assessed in sleep labs with polysomnography, comprising high costs, or through sleep questionnaires, a highly subjective technique. Multiple methods have been proposed to address the estimation of sleep quality, and devices were developed to conduct the examination in the subject's home. The objective of this paper is to analyze the methods and the devices presented in the literature, assessing the development of objective markers that could lead to an improvement of the subjective sleep experience understanding, leading to developments in the treatment of sleep quality deficits. A systematic review was conducted, selecting research articles published from 2000 to 2018, and two research questions were formulated, specifically, 'what methods for sleep quality assessment have been developed' and 'what kind of measures are employed by the devices that have been developed to estimate sleep quality.' The research trend for the assessment of sleep quality is based on the sleep macrostructure, and it was verified that despite the convenience and considerable popularity among the consumers of home health monitoring of devices, such as actigraphs, the validity of these tools regarding the estimation of sleep quality still needs to be systematically examined. A detailed resume of the key findings and the identified challenges are presented, ascertaining the main gaps in the current state of the art.