Geert Jaap Welsing Author

Research Article Open Access

Measuring Pain Relief through Actigraphy in People with Intellectual Disability

Author(s):

Tejo Hijlkema, Sylvia Loos and Geert Jaap Welsing

Information about reliable pain detection in people with intellectual disabilities is scarce. Pain (acute as well as chronic) has a great influence on daily activities and is often under-recognized. Chronic and acute pain also severely influences the quality and duration of sleep. Lack of sleep negatively influences chronic pain. There is no research about the influence of pain on sleep in people with Intellectual Disability. Yet we think there is a link between sleep and pain (we had no reason to assume there is no link between the two). We measured sleep in people with Intellectual Disability at an institution in the Netherlands. All the participants had pain or chronic pain or were suspected of having chronic pain. We measured sleep using actigraphy and we assessed the pain of partic... view more»

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