@article{01HTFRTA1E4WMYZB669MZHDZS9,
  abstract     = {{Background Chronic Fatigue Syndrome patients suffer from symptoms that cannot be explained by a single underlying biological cause. It is sometimes claimed that these symptoms are a manifestation of a disrupted autonomic nervous system. Prior works studying this claim from the complex adaptive systems perspective, have observed a lower average complexity of physical activity patterns in chronic fatigue syndrome patients compared to healthy controls. To further study the robustness of such methods, we investigate the within-patient changes in complexity of activity over time. Furthermore, we explore how these changes might be related to changes in patient functioning.
Methods We propose an extension of the allometric aggregation method, which characterises the complexity 
of a physiological signal by quantifying the evolution of its fractal dimension. We use it to investigate the temporal variations in within-patient complexity. To this end, physical activity patterns of 7 patients diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome were recorded over a period of 3 weeks. These recordings are accompanied by physicians’ judgements in terms of the patients’ weekly functioning.
Results We report signifcant within-patient variations in complexity over time. The obtained metrics are shown 
to depend on the range of timescales for which these are evaluated. We were unable to establish a consistent link 
between complexity and functioning on a week-by-week basis for the majority of the patients.
Conclusions The considerable within-patient variations of the fractal dimension across scales and time force us 
to question the utility of previous studies that characterise long-term activity signals using a single static complexity metric. The complexity of a Chronic Fatigue Syndrome patient’s physical activity signal does not suffice to characterise their high-level functioning over time and has limited potential as an objective monitoring metric by itself.
Keywords Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Complex adaptive systems, Activity patterns, Time-dependent complexity, 
Fractal dimension, Personalised monitoring}},
  articleno    = {{10}},
  author       = {{Rabaey, Paloma and Decat, Peter and Heytens, Stefan and Vogelaers, Dirk and Mariman, An and Demeester, Thomas}},
  issn         = {{1751-0759}},
  journal      = {{BIOPSYCHOSOCIAL MEDICINE}},
  keywords     = {{Personalised monitoring,Fractal dimension,Time-dependent complexity,Activity patterns,Complex adaptive systems,Chronic Fatigue Syndrome}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  number       = {{1}},
  pages        = {{21}},
  title        = {{Time-dependent complexity characterisation of activity patterns in patients  with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome}},
  url          = {{http://doi.org/10.1186/s13030-024-00305-9}},
  volume       = {{18}},
  year         = {{2024}},
}

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