Who needs sleep? It looks like EVERYONE needs sleep but more and more people are getting less and less...
"The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that 100,000 accidents and 1,500 traffic fatalities annually are caused by drowsy driving, far more than those attributed to cellphone. 'Those are the people who are driving next to you and me,' says Nicholson."
READ MORE:
http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-he-sleep9oct09,1,6864206.story?ctrack=1&cset=true
Overwork may be behind medical errors.
The Los Angeles Times
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
comment regarding "Panel: Medication Errors Hazardous to Your Health," July 21.
I was shocked to read that there are an estimated 98,000 deaths a year because of medical error in this country. This statistic warrants a serious evaluation of our medical system. Your article explores some possible errors that account for about 7,000 of these deaths.
However, a possibly greater source of error was not discussed. New doctors serving residency in our hospitals are often expected to work more than 80 hours a week, and the typical shift of nurses is 12 hours, even for the most difficult medical duties, like working in the emergency room.
Numerous studies have shown that decision-making skills are compromised during the pressures of long hours and lack of sleep. Asking hospital personnel to work in such strenuous conditions, especially when they are new to the job, is asking for errors. A serious look at reforming this system should be taken.
Jonathan Fernsler
Los Osos, Calif.
Article in Los Angeles Times
Sunday, December 3, 2006
Fatigue study may help put train hazards to rest
By Dan Weikel, Times Staff Writer
December 3, 2006
New federal research shows that computer modeling can reliably predict when members of freight train crews have an increased risk of accident due to fatigue — a finding that might help solve one of the most persistent safety problems in the railroad industry.
During the yearlong study, Federal Railroad Administration researchers were able to detect the point at which fatigue becomes hazardous by analyzing the often erratic and long work schedules of conductors, brake operators and locomotive engineers.
The findings could prompt the railroad industry to provide more rest for crew members between shifts, FRA officials said.
According to the study, tired crew members play a role in about 25% of all railroad accidents caused by human factors, such as poor judgment, miscommunication, inattentiveness and failure to follow procedures.
"Widespread acceptance by the railroad industry of the validated findings of this fatigue report could potentially lead to fewer serious train accidents," said FRA Administrator Joseph H. Boardman.
Officials for the Assn. of American Railroads, the industry's trade organization and lobbying arm, said they could not comment on the study because they had not had time to evaluate it. "We appreciate the FRA's effort to throw light on the issue," said Tom White, an association spokesman. "We need to work closely with labor on this. Some programs have not gotten anywhere in the past because of union opposition."
Freight train engineers, conductors and brake operators have some of the most irregular and taxing work schedules in the transportation industry. They often put in 60 to 70 hours a week, and can be called to work at any time, which disrupts their sleep patterns and produces the equivalent of jet lag.
From 2001 to 2005, fatigue either caused or contributed to 1,473 of 5,892 human-factor related railroad accidents across the nation.
The number of mishaps related to crew failings has risen 50% to 60% since 1996, while the number of train accidents attributed to other causes, such as mechanical failure, has declined. FRA officials blame weary crew members for at least part of the increase.
Federal regulators identified fatigue as a top safety concern 20 years ago, and it has continued to haunt the railroad industry, especially the nation's largest carriers.
Cost cutting by railroad companies, inadequate hiring and union members' desire to maximize earnings have contributed.
Accident reports show that fatigue has caused some of the deadliest and costliest train accidents, including the 1990 head-on crash of two freight trains in Corona that killed four and caused $4.4 million in property damage.
In one of the latest such collisions, hundreds of people in and around Macdona, Texas, had to be evacuated in 2004 to avoid clouds of chlorine gas leaking from punctured tank cars. Three people died. As a result of that crash, the National Transportation Safety Board recommended in June that the FRA require railroads to base their scheduling decisions on scientific measures designed to reduce fatigue.
The FRA study, released last week, analyzed 1,400 train accidents and the work schedules of the crews involved for 30 days before each mishap.
The nation's five largest railroads supplied the data, and researchers modified a mathematical model prepared by the Defense Department.
The FRA found a strong correlation between a crew's estimated level of alertness and the likelihood of accidents.
Researchers said the severity of fatigue associated with some of the work schedules was equivalent to being awake for at least 21 hours.
FRA officials said their model could be adopted by railroads and labor unions to improve fatigue management plans.
"The hope is that the industry will now … use this for crew scheduling decisions," said railroad consultant William Keppen of Annapolis, Md.
Tom Pontolillo, director of regulatory affairs for the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, said the FRA study would put the "onus on the industry" to do more about the fatigue problem.
He said his union might address rest requirements during contract negotiations or reintroduce federal legislation to increase time off for train crews — bills that have been opposed by railroad companies.
"The FRA study will crank the heat up on the industry," Pontolillo said. "I wouldn't be surprised that this will lead to some efforts. The industry can no longer duck the issue."
"We don't sleep just to rest our tired bodies?" Stahl asks Matthew Walker, the director of the Sleep and Neuroimaging Lab at the University of California, Berkeley. "Well, that's been one of the long-standing theories. But I think what we're starting to understand is that sleep serves a whole constellation of functions, plural," Walker explains.
One thing that's clear, says Walker, is that sleep is critical. In a series of studies done back in the 1980s, rats were kept awake indefinitely. After just five days, they started dying.
Walker says they started dying from sleep deprivation. "In fact, sleep is as essential as food because they will die just about as quick from food deprivation as sleep deprivation. So, it's that necessary," he says.
This 60 Minutes segment on SLEEP is one of the most compelling pieces of reporting and research regarding the importance of
sleep for human beings and the entire animal kingdom.
WATCH THE VIDEO SEGMENTS, Parts 1, 2 and 3, at the CBS NEWS website
National Sleep Foundation Alert
Swine Flu, Sleep Deprivation and Long Hours
If you’re trying to avoid the flu, here’s some interesting news. The immune system is at its strongest while you’re sleeping, according to research presented at the annual meeting of the American Society for Cell Biology. Researchers at Stanford University infected fruit flies with two strains of bacteria, with one group getting the infection during the day and the other at night. According to the research, fruit flies that were infected at night were more likely to survive the infection than fruit flies infected during the day. Mimi Shirasu-Hiza, who led the team of researchers, told medHeadlines that the findings suggest the immune system is stronger at night, when all the other bodily functions are resting. The research also found that flies with impaired circadian rhythms had a difficult time staving off the infection. Your circadian biological clock regulates the timing of periods of sleepiness and wakefulness throughout the day. Circadian disruptions such as jet lag put us in conflict with our natural sleep patterns, leaving us feeling poorly and having more difficulty thinking and performing well. Because of this, it is important to keep a regular sleep schedule and allow plenty of time for quality sleep.
"Sleep is related to everything," said Michael Grandner, a fellow at the Center for Sleep and Respiratory Neurobiology at the University of Pennsylvania.
Another article appeared in the Los Angeles Times alerting us all to the most recent findings regarding SLEEP. Working in the motion picture and television ENTERTAINMENT industry we are in fact in one of the high risk professions. It is alarming as well that this thoroughly documented risk to our health and well being is still not adequately being addressed by our employers in the workplace. Our quality of life could be vastly improved if the normal industrywide practice of scheduled long hours was changed.
READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE HERE: Better sleep, better living
Love and money, work and play, mood and math scores.
They're just a few things related to a night's rest.
- by Shari Roan
Recent inquiry into the Buffalo airline crash has revealed that fatigue and chronic sleep deprivation is a systemic problem for the regional airlines, working conditions that put everyone at high risk.
Our working conditions are not so far off those of the regional flight crews: long commutes, long hours, little or no time for normal rest or sleep. We are not flying airplanes but we are on the road in our cars, jeopardizing ourselves and everyone else on the road with us as we get to and from our workplace.
"A National Transportation Safety Board hearing Wednesday in Washington revealed that the pilot and co-pilot of the ill-fated plane were low-paid, had to commute hundreds of miles to work and probably were fatigued as they made the evening flight Feb. 12 from Newark, N.J.
Including the Buffalo accident, 135 people have been killed in five crashes involving regional airlines since 2002. NTSB officials looking into the crashes found pilot fatigue, high turnover rates among pilots and a pattern of sloppiness at the airlines.
Barry Schiff, a Camarillo-based aviation safety consultant and a former airline pilot, said the revelations about the working conditions for the pilots in the Buffalo crash were 'shocking but not surprising.'
Schiff said long hours, little rest and low salaries were endemic for pilots who worked for regional carriers. And despite new attention given to the 'appalling' working conditions, he thinks little will be done."
"The second day of a three-day National Transportation Safety Board hearing Wednesday focused on whether Captain Marvin Renslow and co-pilot Rebecca Shaw were fatigued on the wintry night of Feb. 12 when they apparently made a series of critical errors as Continental Connection Flight 3407 approached Buffalo Niagara International Airport.
Board member Kitty Higgins said fatigue has been a factor in other crashes and is a major concern for the NTSB and the Federal Aviation Administration.
'When you put together the commuting patterns, the pay levels, the fact that the crew rooms aren't supposed to be used (for sleeping) but are being used - I think it's a recipe for an accident, and that's what we have here,' Higgins said.
NTSB investigators said 93 of the 137 Colgan pilots who worked out of Newark at the time of the accident were commuting from far away.
The company's crew room at the airport is equipped with couches and a big screen TV. Board members said Shaw frequently slept overnight in the crew room in violation of company policy, joking with other crew members that the room had a couch with her name on it.
Mary Finnegan, Colgan's vice president of administration, said the company permits pilots to live anywhere in the country they wish. She said the company also allows them to remove themselves from flight duty if they are fatigued.
'It is their responsibility to commute in and be fit for duty,' Finnegan said. Colgan officials said overnight sleeping wasn't allowed in the crew room because it was a busy place, making quality rest time difficult. The room's lights were kept on all night."
Recent inquiry into the Buffalo airline crash