Sleep, daytime symptoms, and cognitive performance in patients with fibromyalgia.

Abstract

To assess sleep, daytime symptoms, and cognitive performance in patients with fibromyalgia (FM). Ten female patients with FM (mean age 32 yrs) and a matched, noncomplaintive comparison group (n = 9; mean age 30 yrs) spent 2 nights in the sleep laboratory. After the 2nd night, subjects completed a computerized 20 min battery of self-assessment and performance tests at hourly intervals from 07:00 to 20:00 h. Patients with FM spent more time in stage 1 sleep; however, there were no group differences on any other sleep measures. They reported greater sleepiness, more fatigue, more pain, more negative mood, and lower accuracy on performance tasks across a 14 h day. The FM group was slower in speed, but not impaired in accuracy, on performance of complex tasks, i.e., grammatical reasoning, serial addition/subtraction, and a simulated multi-task office procedure. Patients with FM have diurnal impairment in speed of performance on complex cognitive tasks, which accompany light stage 1 electroencephalographic (EEG) sleep and their experience of diffuse pain and nonrestorative sleep symptoms of sleepiness, fatigue, and negative mood.