The Mate App provides an in-depth analysis of your rest. On the app you can find general information such as total rest time, the time you woke up and went to bed, and more detailed data like the number of tosses and turns and longer interruptions. The app is designed to provide you with comprehensive insight into your everyday rest patterns.
Why is tracking rest important in epilepsy?
It is well-established that a good night’s sleep plays a crucial role in a person’s overall health, even more so with epilepsy. Literature shows that the quantity and quality of rest that one gets may have an impact on seizures in many different ways [1]. When a person sleeps, the brain’s electrical and hormonal activity changes, this is why seizures are more likely to happen while falling asleep or when one is about to wake up [2,3]. In general, 7 to 8 hours of sleep is considered ideal, but the quality of rest is more important [4].
Learn more: Lack of Sleep and Epilepsy - Epilepsy foundation
The Mate App can help you keep track of your rest, as well as give you an analysis of how effective it was.
IMPORTANT: The app is not intended to make any diagnostic or treatment recommendations based on tracking rest, but instead, it can give you insights on your overall rest.
Main Screen - Rest time
Rest is displayed as the total time spent in a still state for that current day. Sleep that begins on one night will be reflected in the following day’s rest stats, as you will most likely sleep until the following morning. If you sleep from 10PM Monday night to 8AM Tuesday morning, you will see the whole 10 hours of rest reflected in Tuesday's totals. The minimum duration for a detected rest period is 30 minutes, shorter periods are not considered. You might also notice rest time if your activity level is low for more than 30 minutes (for instance when you’re sitting still, watching TV, reading, or meditating).
Rest Parameters - Your Stats
These values can help assess your rest periods. You can use the value of the last 7 days to check how a particular rest period compares to your average. If you don't have any rest periods logged in the last 7 days, this data may not be accurate. You can see a table of the recommended values at the end of this article.
Effective Rest
The amount of time actually spent resting. This is calculated by subtracting your time awake from the overall rest time. To be more specific, it's the rest time minus interruptions, turns and tosses. For example, if you slept 10 hours, but woke up once for 30 minutes and did 30 turns and tosses for 1 minute each, the effective rest will be 9 hours.
Efficiency
Efficiency is an indicator of the effectiveness of your rest period expressed as a percentage. The higher, the better. It's the ratio of the time actually spent resting versus the total rest period. If you don't move all night it is possible to get 100% efficiency even if it takes you 30 minutes to fall asleep.
Fragmentation
Fragmentation is an indicator of restlessness expressed as a percentage. The lower, the better. The percentage decreases as movements during rest decrease. It will also decrease as the time between each turn and toss increases. Fragmentation takes into account arousals and awakenings that disrupt the normal stages and architecture of sleep. Fragmented sleep results in a sleep cycle that is often not refreshing.
No parameters
The advanced rest analysis cannot be shown because there is not enough information to evaluate your parameters. This usually happens when your rest period is not fully recorded. For instance, your Embrace battery was drained or there was missing data due to the full memory in your Embrace.
Your Rest Timeline
The details of your rest periods are shown in chronological order in this comprehensive look of your rest timeline. You will be able to see the advanced rest analysis only if the rest period is longer than 2 hours. For instance, if you take a nap for 30 minutes, you won't be able to see the rest analysis, but only your nap timing.
Movements during periods of Rest
The graph shows your movement during rest including turns, tosses, and interruptions. Interruptions in your rest are defined as movements that are more intense for a longer period of time.
Turns and tosses
The number of turns and tosses is an indication of how restful or restless your night was. They are large movements or changes in position, such as turning over in bed. This does not necessarily mean that you were fully awake or conscious of your movements, but it may indicate a measurement of how agitated your night was.
Turning and tossing is a personal metric and the absolute number of turns and tosses is not critical as it varies from person to person (for example using a different type of mattress or sharing your bed can influence this number). It is more meaningful to compare the number of turns and tosses for a given night to the general number you experienced in the previous nights. This comparison will provide an indication of whether your night was more or less restful than usual.
Interruptions
Interruptions in your rest are defined as movements that are more intense for a longer period of time. For instance, a trip to the bathroom or getting a glass of water would count as an interruption.
An interruption might also occur between two different rest periods. For example, resting on the sofa and then going to bed might be shown as a unique rest event. If you notice that your main rest period has started earlier than when you actually fell asleep, it’s normal. It means that the period when you were reading or watching TV before sleeping was correctly detected as rest. You will then see an interruption during the transit time from the sofa to bed.
The maximum duration of an interruption is 2 hours. If a rest period starts 2 hours after another rest period, they are considered as different events.
Recommended Values
| Age (years) | Avg. (hours) |
| < 1 | 12 - 15 |
| 1 - 2 | 11 - 14 |
| 3 - 5 | 10 - 13 |
| 6 - 13 | 9 - 11 |
| 14 - 17 | 8 - 10 |
| 18 - 64 | 7 - 9 |
| > 65 | 7 - 8 |
| Age (years) | Avg. |
| 0 - 4 | > 97% |
| 5 - 18 | 97% |
| 18 - 30 | 95% |
| 31 - 40 | 88% |
| 41 - 50 | 85% |
| > 50 | 80% |
| Age (years) | Avg. |
| Every Age | Below 25% |
For more information about the studies behind our rest algorithm: Studies behind Embrace’s rest analysis
References:
[1] Malow, Beth A. "Sleep deprivation and epilepsy." Epilepsy currents 4, no. 5 (2004): 193-195.
[2] Kotagal, Prakash, and Nandan Yardi. "The relationship between sleep and epilepsy." In Seminars in pediatric neurology, vol. 15, no. 2, pp. 42-49. WB Saunders, 2008.
[3] Ferlisi, Monica, and Simon Shorvon. "Seizure precipitants (triggering factors) in patients with epilepsy." Epilepsy & Behavior 33 (2014): 101-105.
[4] Hirshkowitz, Max, Kaitlyn Whiton, Steven M. Albert, Cathy Alessi, Oliviero Bruni, Lydia DonCarlos, Nancy Hazen et al. "National Sleep Foundation’s sleep time duration recommendations: methodology and results summary." Sleep Health 1, no. 1 (2015): 40-43.