Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) is a common health problem characterized by low mood, sadness and irritability. Sleep disturbances are a central feature of depression and adolescence is a period of rapid change in sleep physiology.

To evaluate the categorization of sleep change in three of sleep elements : REM changes; Slow weave sleep changes and fragmentation of sleep. We evaluated this as a tool to detect depression

To assess features of sleep macro architecture as markers for evaluating and detecting adolescent depression

Adolescents completed a two-week protocol that included a formal psychiatric interview, standardized scales, polysomnographic (PSG) assessment, actigraphy, salivary melatonin sampling, and holter monitoring.

Depressed adolescents (n = 22) differed from controls (n = 20) on features of sleep macroarchitecture measured by PSG. 59% of the depressed subjects had more than one PSG marker from each category as compared to control (N = 20). This indicates that subjects who were depressed on clinical assessments using the standardized scales and evaluations had changes in sleep suggestive of depression

The categorization of sleep change in three categories of sleep components (see above) can be a useful tool to detect depression. The results suggests that the individual markers of depression in children and adolescents may not be as effective as the categorization of sleep changes into three categories and using this general approach