Progress in transducer design and empirical characterization of wrist movem
ent has led to diverse wrist activity monitors, each with its unique featur
es and modality of operation. This study compared sleep-wake estimates from
nocturnal wrist activity quantified by different motion-quantifying algori
thms. Healthy young adults wore an Actillume and a Mini Motionlogger on the
same wrist while nocturnal polysomnography data were recorded simultaneous
ly in the laboratory. Activity data were analyzed with ACTION3 using scorin
g algorithms independently calibrated for each measurement modality. Overal
l, each modality yielded accurate and reliable sleep estimates relative to
polysomnographic estimates (agreement rates: 91.4-96.5%, correlations for s
leep duration: 0.79-0.94). Estimates derived from Actillume modalities were
comparable to those of Milli Motionloggers, suggesting that the transducer
s of these two devices performed comparably for monitoring sleep and wakefu
lness. Wrist movement quantified by the Mini Motionlogger proportional-inte
grating mode yielded the best accuracy for detection of sleep-wake states.
(C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.