Fatigue
Arnedt, Owens, Crouch, Stahl, Carskadon, Neurobehavioral Performance of Residents After Heavy Night Call vs. After Alcohol Ingestion 294(9) JAMA 1025-1033 (2005)
Dave's Plain Language Summary: Being tired or fatigued can lead to poor performance on Field Tests, and more importantly, especially in Utah DUI's, fatigue can result in a subject exhibiting Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus (HGN) which most Utah Highway Patrol officers and local law enforcement consider as the gold standard of DUI indication. Moderate fatigue = impaired driving equivalent to alcohol DUI impairment.
ARTICLE
Concern exists about the effect of extended resident work hours; however, no study has evaluated training-related performance impairments against an accepted standard of functional impairment. OBJECTIVES: To compare post-call performance during a heavy call rotation (every fourth or fifth night) to performance with a blood alcohol concentration of 0.04 to 0.05 g% (per 100 mL of blood) during a light call rotation, and to evaluate the association between self-assessed and actual performance. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: A prospective 2-session within-subject study of 34 pediatric residents (18 women and 16 men; mean age, 28.7 years) in an academic medical center conducted between October 2001 and August 2003, who were tested under 4 conditions: light call, light call with alcohol, heavy call, and heavy call with placebo. INTERVENTIONS: Residents attended a test session during the final week of a light call rotation (non-post-call) and during the final week of a heavy call rotation (post-call). At each session, they underwent a 60-minute test battery (light and heavy call conditions), ingested either alcohol (light call with alcohol condition) or placebo (heavy call with placebo condition), and repeated the test battery. Performance self-evaluations followed each test. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Sustained attention, vigilance, and simulated driving performance measures; and self-report sleepiness, performance, and effort measures. RESULTS: Participants achieved the target blood alcohol concentration. Compared with light call, heavy call reaction times were 7% slower (242.5 vs 225.9 milliseconds, P<.001); commission errors were 40% higher (38.2% vs 27.2%, P<.001); and lane variability (7.0 vs 5.5 ft, P<.001) and speed variability (4.1 vs 2.4 mph, P<.001) on the driving simulator were 27% and 71% greater, respectively. Speed variability was 29% greater in heavy call with placebo than light call with alcohol (4.2 vs 3.2 mph, P = .01), and reaction time, lapses, omission errors, and off-roads were not different. Correlation between self-assessed and actual performance under heavy call was significant for commission errors (r = -0.45, P = .01), lane variability (r = -0.76, P<.001), and speed variability (r = -0.71, P<.001), but not for reaction time. CONCLUSIONS: Post-call performance impairment during a heavy call rotation is comparable with impairment associated with a 0.04 to 0.05 g% blood alcohol concentration during a light call rotation, as measured by sustained attention, vigilance, and simulated driving tasks. Residents' ability to judge this impairment may be limited and task-specific.
Abstract courtesy of www.pubmed.org - A service of the National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health
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Results that speak for themselves.
- NP - 26 yr old male, DUI - .81 BAC, Result: NO DUI CONVICTION, No license suspension, no ignition interlock....
- LGN DUI Case 088492033 LGN - 45 yr old male, Two DUI's One Week Apart: DUI - .197; DUI .212 BAC, Result: Single DUI CONVICTION - no jail; Sentence: 10 Week alcohol treatment program. 90 Day license suspension, ignition interlock, 12 mo. probation.
- Murray - 25 yr old male DUI .126 BAC, Speeding; Result: Impaired Driving, No Ignition Interlock, No Supervised Probation, Speeding dismissed.
- RVTN DUI Case 07-9646787 CH/H - 35 yr old male, (APC-Trial) DUI - .197 BAC, Result: NO DUI CONVICTION - not guilty, No license suspension, no ignition interlock, Sentence: none.
- CLRFD - 23 yr old male, DUI - .80 BAC, Turn Signal; Result: NO DUI CONVICTION, No license suspension, no ignition interlock....
- CH/H - 28 yr old male, speeding/DUI - .370 BAC, Result: NO DUI CONVICTION, No license suspension, no ignition interlock.....
- WDVR - 46 yr old male, DUI - .190 BAC, Result: NO DUI CONVICTION, No license suspension, no ignition interlock....
- Summit County DUI - .125 BAC, stopped for speeding, No DUI Conviction, No DMV license suspension, no ignition interlock . . .
- SLC - 49 yr old male, DUI - .178 BAC, Open Container, Result: NO DUI CONVICTION - No license suspension, no ignition interlock
- SLC - 26 yr old male, DUI - .153 BAC, Speed Exhibition; Result: NO DUI CONVICTION - No license suspension, no ignition interlock
- SC - 39 yr old male, (Trial) DUI - .000 BAC, Result: NO DUI CONVICTION - No license suspension, no ignition interlock
- RVTN - 28 yr old male, TRIPLE DUI (Three DUI's In One Month) - #1 - Result: NO DUI CONVICTION, No license suspension, no ignition interlock
- SLC - 24 yr old female, speeding/DUI - .110 BAC, Result: NO DUI CONVICTION, No license suspension, no ignition interlock.....
- Holladay / Cottonwood Heights: .320 UAC, DUI, Speeding. Results: Reckless Driving, non-alcohol related, No DMV Suspension, No Ignition Interlock . . .