Sleep Quality of Persons with Dementia and Family Caregivers in Korean Americans: Wearable Technology to Study the Dyadic Association.

Background: Sleep disturbances, such as difficulty in falling asleep and multiple awakenings at night, are prevalent among persons with Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (hereafter dementia), resulting in advanced cognitive impairment and increased behavioral problems. Additionally, family caregivers (eg, spouses or offspring) suffer from reduced sleep quality as a result of sleep disturbances in the persons with dementia (PWDs) they care for. Relatively little is known about the interaction of sleep parameters in dyads (PWD-caregiver) as paired units among understudied immigrant minorities, particularly Korean Americans.

Objectives: To describe dyads' sleep parameters (ie, total/deep/rapid eye movement/light sleep, awake duration, latency duration, sleep efficiency) using wearable technology (smart-rings) and sleep diaries, and to identify interrelationships among sleep parameters between PWD and caregivers.

Methods: This 4-week observational study used smart-ring monitoring, a sleep survey, and self-reported sleep diaries to explore sleep associations of Korean American dyads recruited from the community. Pearson correlations were performed.

Results: A total of 11 dyads participated in the study. The mean age of PWD was 82.7 years (standard deviation (SD) = 2.3); of caregivers 69.1 years (SD = 10.2). Nine PWD (81.8%) were male, all caregivers (100%) were female, and 4 dyads (36.4%) slept in the same bed. Sleep parameters of PWD were significantly correlated with those of caregivers.

Conclusion: Our findings demonstrate that PWD's sleep parameters (eg, deep sleep) were significantly correlated with those of caregivers' parameters. This study shows the feasibility of using wearable device to measure dyadic sleep quality for both PWD and their caregivers, particularly within immigrant populations.