The Epworth Sleepiness Scale for screening of the drowsy driving: comparison with the maintenance of wakefulness test in an Iranian sample of commercial drivers.

Traffic fatalities are a major cause of morbidity and mortality in Iran. Occupational sleep medicine field needs more cost-effective and applicable tests for screening purposes. This study reports on a pilot screening study for drowsy drivers in an urban Iranian sample of commercial drivers.

Mirtazapine, a sedating antidepressant, and improved driving safety in patients with major depressive disorder: a prospective, randomized trial of 28 patients.

Objective: The objectives of the study were to investigate the effects of mirtazapine, a sedating antidepressant, on driving safety in major depressive disorder (MDD) patients and to observe the effect of mirtazapine on daytime alertness.

Method: Twenty-eight patients who met the DSM-IV criteria for MDD completed the study in a university teaching hospital. Half of these patients took mirtazapine 30 mg at bedtime for 30 days.

Neural correlates of "absence" in interactive simulator protocols.

While much has been written about the importance of the experience of presence in simulation protocols, the role of "absence" deserves closer attention. The role of subjective experience and neurophysiologic processes involved in fluctuating states of consciousness is a key issue in developing assessment and treatment tools using interactive immersive simulator tasks. This paper proposes that when engaging in an interactive simulator task, there are fluctuations of consciousness that determine both motivational engagement and measured performance.

Simulator performance, microsleep episodes, and subjective sleepiness: normative data using convergent methodologies to assess driver drowsiness.

Objective: Our objective was to examine a novel standardized assessment methodology of detecting impaired driving performance due to drowsiness in a normative cohort.

Methods: Thirty-one healthy subjects with no significant sleep, medical, and psychiatric pathology were assessed in a driving simulation paradigm. Thirty-minute simulations were repeated at two-hourly intervals (i.

Sleepiness is not the inverse of alertness: evidence from four sleep disorder patient groups.

The constructs "sleepiness" and "alertness" are often assumed to be reciprocal states of consciousness. This distinction is of increasing concern in relation to psychomotor performance tasks such as driving. We developed two separate subjective scales of alertness to complement existing sleepiness scales.

Psychomotor disturbance in depression: assessment using a driving simulator paradigm.

Background: Psychomotor disturbance is an essential feature of Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and has been associated with impaired functioning on cognitively demanding tasks. Given the psychomotor demands required to navigate a motor vehicle and the disastrous effects of motor vehicles accidents, patients with MDD present a population of clinical interest. The goal of this investigation was to examine the association between MDD and driving ability assessed within a simulated driving paradigm.

What is the driving performance of ambulatory surgical patients after general anesthesia?

Background: Ambulatory surgical patients are advised to refrain from driving for 24 h postoperatively. However, currently there is no strong evidence to show that driving skills and alertness have resumed in patients by 24 h after general anesthesia. The purpose of this study was to determine whether impaired driver alertness had been restored to normal by 2 and 24 h after general anesthesia in patients who underwent ambulatory surgery.

Psychiatric aspects of late-life insomnia.

Epidemiological trends towards a 'graying' population make the issue of insomnia in the elderly an increasingly important research and clinical topic. It is often challenging to determine how much of a psychiatric dimension there is to a clinical condition that is best viewed as both as a symptom and a true psychosomatic entity in its own right. To categorize insomnia as either psychiatric or medically based risks oversimplification of the complexities of sleep disruption in the elderly.