Kawabata, Minako, Ueno, Taro, Tomita, Jun et al. · BMC psychiatry · 2013 · DOI
This study looked at sleep and rest patterns in healthy children and children with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) using wristband activity trackers. The researchers found that when they looked at the patterns of rest and sleep separately—distinguishing between time spent out of bed versus in bed—children with CFS had different patterns compared to healthy children. This suggests that how the body organizes rest and activity may be disrupted in CFS.
Understanding how rest and activity are temporally organized in CFS could reveal fundamental physiological differences in how the body regulates energy and recovery. If children with CFS have disrupted rest-activity patterns, this could inform future treatments targeting the normalization of these patterns and guide activity pacing strategies.
This study does not prove that abnormal rest-activity patterns *cause* CFS symptoms or that correcting these patterns will improve symptoms. It is a cross-sectional observational study and cannot establish causality. The findings also do not demonstrate whether these patterns are unique to CFS or shared with other chronic childhood conditions.
About the PEM badge: “PEM required” means post-exertional malaise was an explicit required diagnostic criterion for participant inclusion in this study — not that PEM was studied, observed, or discussed. Studies using criteria that do not require PEM (e.g. Fukuda, Oxford) are tagged “PEM not required”. How the atlas works →
The first block is for the primary paper and is the citation you should use in research work. The atlas-snapshot line only applies if you are specifically referring to this atlas’s reading of the paper on the date shown.
Primary citation
Kawabata, Minako, Ueno, Taro, Tomita, Jun, Kawatani, Junko, Tomoda, Akemi, Kume, Shoen, et al. (2013). Temporal organization of rest defined by actigraphy data in healthy and childhood chronic fatigue syndrome children.. BMC psychiatry. https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-244X-13-281
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-kawabata-2013-temporal-organization,
author = {Kawabata, Minako and Ueno, Taro and Tomita, Jun and Kawatani, Junko and Tomoda, Akemi and Kume, Shoen and Kume, Kazuhiko},
title = {Temporal organization of rest defined by actigraphy data in healthy and childhood chronic fatigue syndrome children.},
journal = {BMC psychiatry},
year = {2013},
doi = {10.1186/1471-244X-13-281},
note = {PubMed: 24188379},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/kawabata-2013-temporal-organization},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-29. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/kawabata-2013-temporal-organization
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