Actigraphy

To predict a person’s sleep health based on a piece of simple equipment and straightforward processing methods. That is the idea behind the development and recent improvements in actigraphy. This chapter explores the underlying basic science of actigraphic assessment, its application in sleep medicine, and its possible role in physical therapy and rehabilitation practices. Moreover, it discusses why actigraphy should not be considered as a mere substitute for polysomnography, despite its clear role in sleep disorders, particularly in those related to circadian rhythms, offering to clinicians the possibility to perform from long-term follow-up assessments to sleep education. Finally, actigraphy is going to be presented as an interesting tool for rehabilitation and physical therapy practices, in the scenario of neurological diseases and pathologies compromising the movement expression and locomotion, as well as a tool to explore concurrent sleep issues, movement impairment, and pain.