Is that driver on the road next to you asleep?
Boston, MA – May 7, 2013 – Driving with untreated sleep apnea is equivalent to driving with a .06-.08 blood alcohol level. Recent studies have shown that truck drivers are at high-risk for sleep apnea and other sleep disorders’ affecting 28% of Commercial Truck Drivers. In the aviation industry, alternating shifts and rapidly changing time zones present unique obstacles when it comes to sleep apnea and safety in the air. 18% of train operators attribute “near miss accidents” at work due to their sleep apnea. Over 100,000 vehicular accidents and 1,500 deaths annually are caused by sleep deprivation.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) states that insufficient sleep is a public health epidemic. According to the CDC, sleep quality, duration, behaviors, and disorders need to be monitored in order to show its health impact on Americans. One of the many concerns with sleep deprivation is driving and flying sleepy especially for those in the transportation industry. Disturbance of sleep compromises mood, performance, and alertness which can result in the inability to pay attention and react to signals, which then can lead to injury or death.
According to the World Health Organization approximately 100 million people worldwide have Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) or sleep apnea. In the U.S. alone over 23 million Americans (approximately 25% of OSA sufferers) have been diagnosed with OSA and an estimate of millions more whom have not yet been diagnosed; so many of these people are pilots in the air, engineers on the railroads, or commercial truck drivers on the interstates. With these staggering numbers, the use of Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) therapy is growing exponentially.
Most with sleep apnea use CPAP therapy to manage their sleeping disorder. The transportation industry is now recognizing the importance and need for their workers to comply with their prescribed CPAP usage, but for those transportation specialists, CPAP therapy is much more difficult to manage while on the road. Maintenance and keeping the equipment clean and sanitized comes with its challenges, especially for those who are traveling. Better Rest Solutions’ innovative product, SoClean, automatically and effortlessly completes the daily chore of sanitizing a CPAP mask, hose, and reservoir without any disassembly. The SoClean kills any bacteria or viruses that might be living in or on the end-user’s equipment and mask.
Keeping CPAP equipment clean and sanitized helps keep the end-user healthier and more compliant to therapy, which in turn helps to decrease the chances of experiencing the dangers of sleep apnea and “flying and driving” sleepy.
“If it’s difficult to keep equipment clean while traveling, then the CPAP user is not going to use their equipment. It is so important for our transportation specialist to have an easy and efficient way to keep their equipment clean and ready to use while on the road. Their lives and by extension, all of our lives depend on it,” said Michael Schmidt, President of Better Rest Solutions. “I cannot imagine how hard it is to be away from home and try to clean and maintain a CPAP machine.”
It is critical to ensure those Americans who are in the transportation industry are experiencing proper sleep apnea treatment and therapy coupled with an effective, effortless, and transportable way to clean their equipment on the road. This will help to better protect the traveling public from the dangers associated with those in the public transportation industry who suffer with sleep apnea.
For more information on Better Rest Solutions and the SoClean device visit: https://www.soclean.com/SoClean.html
