"Studying The Relationship Of Sleep Efficiency And Balance In People With Essential Tremor"

BACKGROUND: People with ET exhibit an upper extremity action tremor, and surprisingly also display worse gait and balance performance, cognition, and sleep quality. To date, non-tremor symptoms, such as gait and sleep, are infrequently examined. Understanding the impact of sleep quality on walking and balance in people with ET will yield greater insight of modifiable factors of the disease. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship of sleep habits on anticipatory control, reactive postural control, sensory orientation and dynamic gait using the Mini Balance Evaluation Systems Test (miniBEST) in people with ET. METHODS: Participants (n = 7) were adults diagnosed with ET (age = 65, 4 females). Six Opal APDM sensors were placed on the participants’ ankles, wrists, sternum and lumbar. The miniBEST test was then administered to the participant. The miniBEST was used to measure anticipatory control, reactive postural control, sensory orientation and dynamic gait. Sleep efficiency (self-reported) was measured as minutes spent asleep divided by total minutes spent in bed. The total miniBEST and the subscores (anticipatory control, reactive postural control, sensory orientation, and dynamic gait) were correlated to sleep efficiency using Pearson’s correlations (alpha = 0.05). RESULTS: No relationships were significant between sleep efficiency and the miniBEST total or the subscores (Figure 1). CONCLUSION: Despite evidence of sleep impacting gait and balance in people without ET, our data suggest that there is no relationship between subscores and total of the miniBEST and sleep efficiency. More work is necessary to better understand non-tremor, non-upper extremity symptoms in people with ET to improve quality of life.