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Sleep Apnea and Truckers

Sleep Apnea and Truckers. To the Respironics, Resmeds and Fisher Paykels of the world, the two go together like Love and Marriage. To truckers the combination is more like oil and water. Clearly, the manufacturers have the moral high ground. But whether they will be able to woo truckers remains to be seen.

Truckers are disproportionately predisposed to having some form of Sleep Apnea, with one study pegging the number at 28% of all those holding commercial trucking licenses. And like most people who have some form of Sleep Apnea, truckers aren't getting treated for it. Now pair those facts with truckers driving 18-wheelers on long hauls for hours on end without interruption, and the potential for disaster is alarming: of the small number of truckers who actually are being treated for Sleep Apnea, the study showed, there was a 73% reduction in preventable driving accidents.

Mention Sleep Apnea to a trucker, and the likely response will be denial. Which makes sense on a certain level, because they fear that if they admit it they will have their licenses, along with their livelihoods, revoked. And indeed, at the behest of the CPAP manufacturers, the Federal Department of Transportation is headed down that path, proposing that to be physically fit to hold a trucking license a driver must have "no established medical history or clinical diagnosis of a respiratory dysfunction likely to interfere with his/her ability to control and drive a commercial motor vehicle safely." If such a dysfunction is detected, the driver must be evaluated and treated for the dysfunction. Easy enough to say, but as we all know, getting well with Sleep Apnea is about trial and error, and often takes time. How the D.O.T. and the manufacturers agitating for this change are going to deal with that hard fact remains to be seen. But this much is clear: their success in wooing their unwilling partner will depend on it.

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Comment by RichM on January 28, 2009 at 8:10pm
There are a number of things that could have a effect on sleep and sleep apnea, Over the years I have worked many long hours with a average of 60+ hrs a week with travel all over the world working for IBM till about 2 years ago when I was in a accident that disabled me. I have be diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) since 1998 and most likely had it for a number of years before that but no one knew why I was tired so much or had breathing problems due to Asthma since I was 6 years old (50 years ago) I would average 4 hrs of sleep every night for many years. Due to working in the computer field I would gain weight due to working long hours setting in fount of a computer and flying over 150,000 miles a year for many years living out of hotels and on the road when I was stateside out every Sunday night and back every Friday night. Between the weight and the pills to get to sleep and then have issues trying to stay awake during the day did not help with my health much like long haul truckers that are on the road for days on end sitting for long hours and trying to sleep either in their cabs or if lucky in a hotel somewhere away from home. I had the throat surgery (which I do not recommend, it cause more problems then it was worth) and I still had to be on the Cpap for the OSA. Since my accident (which I did not cause and was not due to my sleep apnea) I ending up with a lot of pain which I still working on controlling with Medication. The medication now is having a effect with me having now Central Sleep Apnea where my brain just decides to stop breathing when I sleep. I suspect that this might be a problem with other people with them not even knowing about it, This is very DEADLY if not treated. Now I am using a BiPap instead of my Cpap that I was using these many years. So far it seams to be helping. I still have problems just getting to sleep, or staying asleep, each night due to the brain injury I had received with the car accident but I am not giving up it is a long road back but it beats what could happen if I did not use it and monitor it. Hope this helps.
Comment by Gordon Osmond on January 28, 2009 at 5:59pm
Truck driving interferes with the body clock, those life rhythms that govern so much of our life. I would guess that sleep apnea is worse as a result. My son who was a night shift worker for many years blames his sleep apnea on the late night shift. What do you think?
Comment by Steven Y. Park, MD on January 28, 2009 at 2:36pm
What a timely post. I just happened to be interviewed yesterday morning on Sirius radio's "The Road Dog Channel" by Mark Willis, host of "The Loading Dock." It's station with a nationwide audience of 500K people, mainly truckers. We talked mainly about the dangers of sleep apnea and took some great calls from people throughout the country.

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