Gadgets: Helping or Disrupting Sleep?

Gadgets: Helping or Disrupting Sleep?

Desak Ketut Indrasari Utami

Department of Neurology FK Unud / RSUP Sanglah Denpasar

               Gadget in the Indonesian Dictionary (KBBI) means an electronic device with practical functions. Gadgets in the form of mobile devices (smartphones and tablet computers) have become prevalent for many people, regardless of age, race, gender, and socioeconomic status, due to the rapid improvement in functionality and lower costs of selling mobile devices. How gadgets affect sleep we can discuss further. Use of mobile devices is said to increase the risk of insomnia. The number of technological devices used in the bedroom one hour before bed was significantly associated with difficulty sleeping. A study examining the association of six types of technology at bedtime with various sleep parameters: sleep quality, sleep duration, nightmare frequency, sleepwalking frequency, and cognitive impairment found that those who listened to music while sleeping had more frequent nightmares, whereas cell phone use during bedtime was significantly associated with difficulty initiating sleep. In addition to their potential to interfere with sleep, mobile devices also offer opportunities for the assessment and management of sleep disorders. When compared to Polysomnography which is the gold standard for sleep assessment (but requires specialized equipment, trained technicians and specialized sleep laboratories), sleep-related applications on mobile phones take a much more basic approach that primarily measures the presence or absence of limb movement via accelerometer recording. internal to infer waking and sleeping patterns. Accelometric and acellometric units, used on the wrist, are now used to measure basic sleep patterns such as number of wakes, hours slept, and sleep efficiency.   Garde et al. examined the potential use of smartphone oximeters as a screening tool for monitoring sleep-related breathing disorders in children and they noted promising test characteristics (sensitivity 88.4%, specificity 83.6%, positive predictive value 76.0%). 

               There are hundreds of mobile device applications related to insomnia treatment. However, only a few have been verified to confirm efficacy, and no randomized clinical trials have been published. There are apps available to help people fall asleep, provide meditation guides, breathing exercises, or hypnosis to help people fall asleep. Apart from that, an application has also been developed to apply Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to insomnia. Apart from diagnostic and therapeutic potential, mobile device applications can also be used to promote good sleep behavior by sharing sleep information via social networks. Almost every day, devices or apps that claim to track sleep duration and sleep quality appear commercially available. There are several types of applications available, one of which uses a smartphone sensor to register sleep-related data. This application detects the amount of movement in the bed from the phone tucked under the pillow, to estimate whether the user is awake, sleeping shallow or deep sleeping. Some offer services to wake the user at the most suitable time according to the application's algorithm, even measuring the extent to which the user snores or talks in sleep. More advanced versions of the application consist of wearable devices. Other types of sleep-related apps are those that promise to improve sleep quality by offering relaxation, guided meditation and even hypnosis. Usually this type of app provides soothing sounds from nature (birds, sea, rain), or even special sounds meant to stimulate a healthy sleep reaction in the brain. There are also apps that claim to adjust the type and amount of light emitted by the phone screen to prevent the ill effects of using a phone screen late at night on melatonin production. The growing number of apps and devices makes it difficult to understand as they change constantly. Despite this, not much is known about the success of most applications and devices. Most applications or devices are not very successful, and successful applications sometimes remain so for only a limited period of time. Most of the applications (45%) collect data automatically using sensors embedded in smartphone devices. However, it is very important to underline that the sleep parameters are calculated by the sleep self-management app's custom algorithm has not been successfully validated against the results obtained by Polysomnography (PSG), its gold standard. While the use of sleep trackers increases the involvement of individuals in monitoring their sleep patterns, creates a motivational effect that stimulates healthy sleep habits, and allows for a new database for research, there are a number of issues that should be considered regarding the growing trend of sleep quantification. When these apps and devices change users' sleep behavior and user perceptions of sleep quality, this is important because the increasing trend of self-monitoring of sleep can lead to the growth of the phenomenon of 'chronorexia' or 'orthosomnia', in which people develop an obsession with 'healthy sleep', obsessed with perfecting their sleep tracking data, which is actually unhealthy and possibly damaging. Finally, with applications and tools like this, healthcare professionals dealing with sleep disorders, from primary care doctors to sleep clinics, have to adapt to new situations where patients are increasingly arriving with self-diagnoses based on self-obtained data from sleep tracking devices. them, and it is also possible that there is an increasing number of false positive cases. Every thing has positive and negative values, depending on which angle we judge it from, and align it with our needs. As a community or health worker, following technological trends and healthy lifestyles is very important and should be accompanied by sufficient knowledge and attitude wisdom, so that maximum results are obtained. Greetings healthy sleep, happy healthy life.