How Does Sleep Quality Affect Pain and Fatigue in Older Adults With Osteoarthritis?

A study published in the Journal of Pain associated poor sleep quality with increased pain and fatigue in older adults with symptomatic osteoarthritis (OA), reports Clinical Pain Advisor . The researchers observed 160 subjects, 71 years old on average, with hip and/or knee OA and mild to moderate pain and fatigue. Participants completed daily diaries for five days, recording symptom intensity on waking and at 11 a.m., 3 p.m., 7 p.m., and bedtime. Subjects also self-reported sleep quality for each night and wore actigraphs to monitor sleep duration and efficiency, onset latency, and time awake after sleep onset. Average sleep quality was designated as fair, and actigraph readings showed that most participants experienced good sleep, with a median duration of 7.35 hours, 83.8 percent efficiency, latency of 16 minutes, and time awake after onset of 42 minutes. Poor sleep quality was connected to worse pain and fatigue in the morning, but no significant associations were noted between time of symptom measurement and actigraph-based sleep parameters.