Monday, May 22, 2000
Sleepy workers costing nation
$18B a year in productivity lost to fatigue
By Carla D'Nan Bass
The Dallas Morning News
In recent years, employers and workers have been forced to address sleep deprivation, according to Dr. Philip Becker, executive director of the Sleep Medicine Institute at Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas.
“We've had some worker's comp cases where the employers said, "Get some help or you will lose your job,'” said Dianne Cooke, the institute's director of marketing and managed care.
The problem affects all industries. Sleepy workers cost the nation about $18 billion a year in lost productivity, the National Sleep Foundation estimates.
Nighttime emergency medical technicians or nurses and other shift workers have some of the worst sleep problems, the foundation says.
About 29 percent of shift workers say they are so tired at work that they can't perform their daily duties at least several days a week, according to a Sleep Foundation poll.
Seventeen percent of day workers say the same thing.
Technicians or other health-care workers who focus on routine procedures can have the worst trouble fighting off drowsiness because they usually can't count on adrenaline to keep them awake, said Dr. Becker.
“When performance is demanded, there's not much trouble,” he said. “It's not the surgeon that's the main problem. He's active and involved. The problem might be the guy holding the retractor (a surgical instrument) at 4 a.m.”
Shift workers have two problems relating to sleep. They must fight off the body's natural desire to sleep between midnight and 6 a.m., and they usually sleep fewer hours than do people who have day jobs, Dr. Becker said.
“There is a tendency for people who work night shifts to have an additional job or longer hours,” Dr. Becker said.
Daytime distractions — noise and family activities — also keep night-shift workers from the sleep they need, the foundation says. And that's a big problem for working mothers.
“So when they go home, if they don't get help from their spouses, they have child-care and housework responsibilities,” Dr. Becker said.
Some night workers have trouble ever falling asleep. Many seek help at the Sleep Institute.
Patients spend the night at the clinic, where sensors are stuck to their head, chest and legs before they retire to a room. Clinicians monitor the subjects using video and signals from the various sensors.
The center's goal is for patients to get a full night of sleep.
“Missing just a little sleep each night adds up day after day,” said Ms. Cooke.
The center's workers have found that they are not immune to the problem they treat. Ms. Cooke said she suffered from sleep deprivation for about a year until “I finally made it a priority to get enough sleep.”
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