Medical fitness to drive, emergency service vehicles and crash risk.

Background: Emergency service vehicle (ESV) drivers are an important part of the health, fire and police services. ESV driving is associated with increased crash risk, but little guidance exists in the literature on relevant medical conditions among drivers and their potential for adding to higher crash risks.

Aims: We undertook a narrative review to examine the role of medical and other conditions in crash risk of ESV drivers.

Headache Impairs Attentional Performance: A Conceptual Replication and Extension.

Unlabelled: Pain is thought to capture our attention. A consequence is that our performance on other tasks may suffer. Research has supported this, showing that pain disrupts our ability to perform various attention tasks.

The disruptive effects of pain on n-back task performance in a large general population sample.

Pain captures attention, displaces current concerns, and prioritises escape and repair. This attentional capture can be measured by its effects on general cognition. Studies on induced pain, naturally occurring acute pain, and chronic pain all demonstrate a detrimental effect on specific tasks of attention, especially those that involve working memory.