Dissertation
Using Actigraphy and Ecological Momentary Assessment to Predict Everyday Functioning in Older Adulthood
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
01/2015
Handle:
https://hdl.handle.net/2376/117742
Abstract
Neuropsychologists are often asked to report on the functional status of patients; however, these interpretations and recommendations are based on cognitive performances and assumptions of underlying relationships with everyday functioning. There is notably less focus on alternative etiologies as causal or mediational mechanisms for poorer cognitive and everyday abilities in older adults. Specifically, psychological and physiological symptoms likely play roles in the daily fluctuations in completing common tasks (e.g., cooking or cleaning) accurately or efficiently, especially as individuals age and report more health problems. However, little research has evaluated the mediational factors, such as sleep, daytime fatigue, and mood that may compromise the functional abilities of cognitively healthy older adults. This study builds on previous findings of limited direct relationships between sleep and everyday functioning due to significant intra-individual variability. Three theoretical models were evaluated, including a model of previous night's sleep as a predictor of daily mood, fatigue, sleepy/drowsiness, and perceived thinking abilities, as well as two models of sleep and daily health variables and their influence on everyday functioning. Using actigraphy and ecological momentary assessment techniques, the first model showed that actigraphic sleep measures from the previous night could predict levels of fatigue at the morning and mid-day time blocks, as well as sleepy/drowsiness at the morning time block; however, sleep measures did not predict subjective report of mood or perceived thinking abilities. In the second model, sleep variability did not predict a significant amount of variance in the everyday functioning measure above the influence of participant age. The addition of subjective report of mood, fatigue, sleepy/drowsiness, and perceived thinking abilities did not improve the predictive ability of the model. These findings suggest that objectively measured sleep quality is related to subjective experience of fatigue and sleepy/drowsiness the following morning; however, the models predicting everyday functioning may benefit from additional variables to address mitigating factors of subjective physiological and psychological experiences. Continued efforts to examine the relationship between cognition, sleep, and everyday functioning are encouraged and future directions for research are indicated.
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Details
- Title
- Using Actigraphy and Ecological Momentary Assessment to Predict Everyday Functioning in Older Adulthood
- Creators
- Carolyn Parsey
- Contributors
- Maureen Schmitter-Edgecombe (Advisor)Diane J Cook (Committee Member)Gregory Belenky (Committee Member)Sarah Tragesser (Committee Member)
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- Psychology, Department of
- Theses and Dissertations
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
- Number of pages
- 75
- Identifiers
- 99900581841301842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Dissertation