Sleep disturbance is common among patients with upper extremity illness. Sometimes the sleep disturbance is associated with pathophysiology (e.g. carpal tunnel syndrome), while often it is also a function of psychosocial distress and ineffective coping. Although upper extremity disability correlates with psychosocial aspects of illness, the association with sleep disturbance in upper extremity disability is less certain. While accounting for sociodemographic, condition-related, and psychosocial factors, we found that sleep disturbance correlated with disability among patients with upper extremity illness (1). Symptoms of depression and ineffective coping strategies also correlated with upper extremity-specific disability. Pain interference was the only factor associated with disability in multivariable analysis. Sleep disturbance is not as strongly or directly associated with symptom intensity and magnitude of disability as ineffective coping strategies, but interventions to reduce pain interference (e.g. cognitive behavioral therapy) hold great potential to decrease musculoskeletal symptom intensity, magnitude of disability, and perhaps even sleep disturbance.

References

1. Peters RM, Menendez ME, Mellema JJ, Ring D, Vranceanu AM. Sleep Disturbance and Upper-Extremity Disability. Arch Bone Jt Surg. 2016 Jan;4(1):35-40. PubMed PMID: 26894216; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4733233.