COVID-19 and Sleep Disturbances: A Literature Review of Clinical Evidence.

The need for adequate good quality sleep to optimally function is well known. Over years, various physical, psychological, biological, and social factors have been investigated to understand their impact on sleep. However, understanding the etiological processes that are involved in causing sleep disturbances (SD) as impacted by stressful phases such as pandemics has not been well studied. Many such etiological and management strategies have surfaced during the latest "coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. The occurrence of these SD in the infected and uninfected individuals poses a need to investigate factors linked to such occurrence during this phase. Some of such factors include stressful practices such as social distancing, masking, vaccines, and medications availability, changes in routines, and lifestyles. As the status of infection improved, a collective term for all the prolonged effects of COVID-19 after the resolution of the primary infection called the post-COVID-19 syndrome (PCS) surfaced. Apart from impacting sleep during the infectious phase, the aftereffects of this virus left an even greater impact during the PCS. Various mechanisms have been hypothesized to be linked to such SD during the PCS, but the available data are inconclusive. Further, the varied patterns of incidence of these SDs differed by many factors, such as age, gender, and geographical location, making clinical management even more challenging. This review elucidates the impact of coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) (COVID) disease on sleep health during the various phases of the COVID-19 pandemic. We also investigate different causal relationships, management strategies, and knowledge gaps related to SD during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Development of Smart Alarm Based on Sleep Cycle Analysis

Sleep problem is currently a norm for many people, especially during this Covid-19 pandemic. Due to the limited number of sleep medicine studies, most people were unaware and just ignored their sleep problems. The use of polysomnography (PSG) in sleep medicine is quite popular, but due to its disturbance towards the subjects, it may decrease the subjects' sleep quality and may affect the result accuracy since it needs to be attached to the subjects' body. This work proposed a smart alarm based on the sleep cycle using speech analysis that uses a non-contact device, which is an undirected microphone of the Google AIY Voice Kit with Raspberry Pi. The microphone will be used to record the subjects' sleep sounds and detect the subjects' sleep cycle. The system will trigger a speaker attached to the Google Voice Kit to produce a sound to wake up the subject when they complete a particular sleep cycle according to their preference. Results showed that the system could detect sounds when subjects were sleeping and show a subject's sleep pattern. Whenever the subject past specific minutes, the sound amplitude is increased by 3 dB. These results indicate that subject is likely having their REM stages, and after 10 minutes, the subject will complete a sleep cycle.

Melatonin: From Neurobiology to Treatment.

Melatonin, the major regulator of the sleep/wake cycle, also plays important physiological and pharmacological roles in the control of neuronal plasticity and neuroprotection. Accordingly, the secretion of this hormone reaches the maximal extent during brain development (childhood-adolescence) while it is greatly reduced during aging, a condition associated to altered sleep pattern and reduced neuronal plasticity. Altogether, these properties of melatonin have allowed us to demonstrate in both experimental models and clinical studies the great chronobiotic efficacy and sleep promoting effects of exogenous melatonin. Thus, the prolonged release formulation of melatonin, present as a drug in the pharmaceutical market, has been recently recommended for the treatment of insomnia in over 55 years old subjects.