Vigilance and automobile accidents in patients with sleep apnea or narcolepsy.

Patients with obstructive sleep apnea or narcolepsy report difficulty remaining alert and attentive. To detect impaired vigilance, we designed Steer Clear, a computer program simulating a long and monotonous highway drive that presents 780 obstacles in 30 min. Sixty-two patients with sleep apnea hit a higher percentage of obstacles (4.