Why truck drivers need regular screening for sleep disorder?
The findings suggest regular screening of commercial truck drivers for sleep apnea. If they have it they should be allowed driving only after treatment.
Regular screening of commercial truck drivers for sleep apnea, a disorder in which breathing repeatedly stops and starts, could reduce the incident of truck crashes and save lives, suggests a new study.
With 1.25 million deaths per year, the increasing road traffic fatalities continue to remain a major public health issue worldwide. Low-income countries record the highest road traffic deaths.
In the new study the researchers led by Stephen Burks of the University of Minnesota, Morris studied 3629 drivers at a specific trucking firm in the United States. While 1,613 of them were suffering from OSA, 2016 were not.
They found that drivers with the disorder who didn’t adhere to treatment had a rate of preventable crashes five-fold greater than those which had similar driving experience.
OSA is the most common cause of excessive daytime sleepiness or fatigue and linked with negative impacts on attention, vigilance, executive functioning and working memory.
The findings suggest regular screening of commercial truck drivers for sleep apnea. If they have it they should be allowed driving only after treatment.
“Mandating screening, diagnosis, and treatment would reduce large truck and bus accidents, and, therefore, deaths and injuries among the motoring public,”science portal EurekAlert quoted Stefanos Kales, a senior author of the study, published online in the journal Sleep, as saying.
Big Wire
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