Daytime Sleepiness: A Hazard to Work Safety

Daytime sleepiness is a problem often related to obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), an under-diagnosed sleep-related breathing disorder.  In OSA, the airway becomes narrowed or collapsed during sleep, reducing or completely stopping air movement, resulting in multiple pauses in breathing. These pauses can last up to 10 seconds and can occur from 5 to as many as 100 times each sleep period.

Daytime sleepiness impairs reaction time, judgment, vision, information processing, and short-term memory.  This in turn impacts work performance and increases the risk of work-related accidents.  Studies have shown that highly sleepy workers were 70% more likely to be involved in accidents than non-sleepy workers.
Signs of OSA include loud heavy snoring, waking up with a snort or gasp, fatigue, headache on awakening and extreme daytime sleepiness.  OSA is closely correlated with many chronic health conditions, such as congestive heart failure, diabetes, kidney disease and chronic lung diseases.

There are a number of risk factors associated with the development of OSA.
Non-modifiable risks include aging, male gender, specific facial structures (small jaw, large tongue, or enlarged soft tissues in the mouth and throat), family history of OSA, as well as the chronic health problems previously mentioned.  Modifiable risk factors for OSA include obesity, neck circumference over 17 inches for men or over 16 inches for women, waist circumference over 40 inches, smoking, alcohol and sedative use.
   
Effective treatment is available for OSA that can improve sleep quality and daily functioning, which translates to lower risk for work-related accidents and the development of chronic disease.  Be aware of the signs and symptoms of OSA and seek evaluation (or encourage someone you know to do so) from a health care professional.

For more info about sleep apnea: http://sleepfoundation.org/sleep-disorders-problems/sleep-apnea

Work accident research article: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12782753