Sleepiness at the wheel is thought to be an important cause of accidents in modern societies. The most important ways that sleepiness contributes to these accident are still poorly understood, nevertheless, recent data suggest that actually falling asleep is a much less likely causal event than making attentional and judgmental errors. If falling asleep at the wheel in acute sleep deprived healthy subjects is a well identified risk factor for traffic accidents, several studies show that in chronically sleepy patients (i.e., apneics) daytime somnolence is not the major explaining risk factor. This could be due to a difference in term of misperception of somnolence between chronic sleepy patients and acute sleep deprived subjects. Acute modification of perception of the environment related to sleep restriction especially in vulnerable subjects (i.e., young drivers) seems to be a major factor to integrate into accident analysis and prevention efforts. (Author/publisher)
Samenvatting