Truck Drivers, obesity and sleep apnoea.
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Truck Drivers, obesity and sleep apnoea.
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Obesity is common in truck drivers particularly interstate semi-trailer drivers and so is sleep apnoea. However I had not realised some issues which mitigate against this until today. A truck driver w
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Forums » Open clinical » General clinical » Truck Drivers, obesity and sleep apnoea.
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Truck Drivers, obesity and sleep apnoea.
posted at 13/1/2012 2:38 AM GMT
on bmj.com
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Posts: 2075
First: 10/3/2009 Last: 18/5/2012 |
Obesity is common in truck drivers particularly interstate semi-trailer drivers and so is sleep apnoea. However I had not realised some issues which mitigate against this until today. A truck driver with OSA was no allocated the same truck each time and thus had trouble rigging up CPAP to run on a battery. They sleep in the cab at the back when parked off the side of the road. The distances they drive here are vast. Some road trains which carry mainly cattle can have five trailers. Roads are not all sealed. As they are dependent on bought food when away from home for a week, wieght loss is made more problematic.. In commercial drivers with OSA here, they are issued with a Conditional Driver's Licence which I as a sleep physician state that they must be compliant with CPAP and with a download available at each visit and a regular review by me eg at least annual to have the licence re-issued.
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Re: Truck Drivers, obesity and sleep apnoea.
posted at 13/1/2012 7:05 AM GMT
on bmj.com
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Posts: 383
First: 15/7/2011 Last: 21/5/2012 |
I was in Canada some years ago and met an interstate truck driver at a wedding. He drove vast distances in trucks much larger than those I had seen in the UK. He was 24. Each day he drank 4 litres of Coke (not diet) and ate absolute rubbish at irregular intervals but had a constant supply in his cab of chips (crisps), sweets and other confectionary. He was already of a considerable size. His job required no physical effort, just mounting the steps to the cab and then reversing the process on arrival at his destination. I returned to Canada a few years later (my sister lives there) and happened to meet the same truck driver in the street. He was now 36, retired from work due ll health, he had obesity, Diabetes, Hypertension, extremely poor mobility and joint pains We chatted for a while and then he headed towards the pizza joint. Interestingly his mother was with him and she was almost the same size and shape as him. I don't relate this to be unkind about them but it would seem that the parental influence is not positive. A terrible shame to see such a young man effectively killing himself. I believe he also used CPAP. |
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Re: Truck Drivers, obesity and sleep apnoea.
posted at 18/1/2012 6:26 AM GMT
on bmj.com
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Posts: 1464
First: 24/12/2008 Last: 6/5/2012 |
Thank you Odysseus, for bringing this up here. I think it is like hitting nail-bed of the frontiers of sleep research while we discuss this here. Last year, in sleep rounds, a leading researchers from the field gave talk about sleep apnea among long route Lorry/Truck drivers. I think there is not enough data and there are some big studies are underway on this group of population. This is really encouraging. Some of the early observations made were, the drivers who snore more had bigger crashes etc. I think with the discovery of technology and interest from the scientists, there will be more concrete data in coming days. I saw a research posted in Annals of Internal Medicine among women about osbtructive sleep apnearecently. Thanks.
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Re: Truck Drivers, obesity and sleep apnoea.
posted at 18/1/2012 7:19 AM GMT
on bmj.com
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Posts: 2075
First: 10/3/2009 Last: 18/5/2012 |
Thanks, Matiram. I feel better now and will put the knife down. In Australia there is quite a lot of research in this area. A really simple thing is trying to improve nutritional/dietary choices in itinerant truck drivers one of which I say today. He drove a B-Double which has two trailers 27 metres long and drives about 1700 km on one journey eg Brisbane-Melbourne. Coast to coast is about 5000 km.
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Re: Truck Drivers, obesity and sleep apnoea.
posted at 18/1/2012 11:37 AM GMT
on bmj.com
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Posts: 5
First: 16/1/2012 Last: 19/1/2012 |
As has already been mentioned, the distances in the UK are nothing like as long, but the problem is now being exacerbated by the number of trucks that cross Europe and then have maybe a 2-hour ferry trip across the Channel as the only enforced break. There has been at least one documented death in England attributable to a British trucker with OSA. I believe he wiped out a broken down car on the hard shoulder. He had apparently seen his GP and been advised against driving but economic necessity prevailed. Access to sleep services and CPAP is patchy at best here and while OSA is gaining a higher profile as a cause of cardiac problems the driving implications have not really been highlighted. As a regular user of the M20 - the main artery from the Channel ports - I am extremely wary of the East European trucks that weave their way inland from Dover and Folkestone. These trucks are meant to be fitted with tachographs, but there are never enough checkpoints monitoring these and, in any event, I suspect that a lot of the official 'down time' is occupied with eating and watching TV - leaving precious little sleep time, even with CPAP. Just to put anybody off using a UK motorway, a recent TV programme featured a trucker who was pulled over for erratic driving and use of the phone and found to be well over the drink-driving limit, with a cab full of empty and half-full beer cans. Having said all that, I'm sure all these guys constitute but a tiny minority of truckers, but their vehicles weigh at least 20 times the weight of a car and they usually come off best in a collision! |
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Re: Truck Drivers, obesity and sleep apnoea.
posted at 19/1/2012 12:35 AM GMT
on bmj.com
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Posts: 2075
First: 10/3/2009 Last: 18/5/2012 |
OSA is easily diagnosed or at least sleep-related accidents by the accident investigation gendarmes. Lack of skid marks is a good clue. OSA accounts for a lot of single vehicle accidents I am sure. A high proportion of truck drivers have OSA. I see them daily. Home sleep studies have caught more fish in the net. I have issued countless conditional licences to truck drivers. |
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