People with fatigue syndromes commonly have sleep symptoms

Sleep is only one of the factors contributing to fatigue.

I see a number of people with fatigue syndromes. Not surprisingly they all have problems with sleep – as that is largely why they have been referred to me. One of the common themes is that people are very focussed on improving their sleep as one of the keys to reducing fatigue symptoms. I’m a keen advocate for better sleep, but in fatigue syndromes there are often other factors also contributing to fatigue that need to be considered. 

This research from the UK looked at predictors of fatigue severity, sleepiness and cognitive functioning in 118 adults with a diagnosis of chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). They found that predictors were:

Fatigue severity: duration of symptoms, depression, how long people spent awake during the night. Together these 3 variables accounted for 24% of fatigue severity scores.

Daytime sleepiness: Anxiety was the only predictor and accounted for 14% of sleepiness symptoms.

Cognitive functioning: Gender, anxiety and depression accounted for 30% of changes in cognitive functioning.

The take home message for me from this research is that sleep variables were not the main predictors of these 3 important measures of daytime functioning. This reinforces that whilst it is important to optimise sleep in fatigue syndromes, that is only part of an overall strategy.

This study also only used diaries to look at sleep. Another study by the same group, looking at 343 people with CFS using sleep studies, showed that 30% had a primary sleep disorder which was contributing to their symptoms. Suggesting that people with CFS should have a sleep study to look for other factors contributing to their symptoms.

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