Sleep Apnea Increases Accident Risk
People with sleep apnea – a night-time breathing disorder that disrupts sleep – double the risk of being in a serious car crash, a Canadian study finds.
“We were surprised, not only about how many sleep apnea patients’ crashes involved personal injury, but that some patients had fairly mild sleep apnea and were still having serious crashes,” said study author Dr. Alan Mulgrew, of the University of British Columbia Sleep Disorders Programme.
Researchers studied 800 people with sleep apnea and 800 without the condition.
They found that those with sleep apnea were twice as likely to be in a car crash, and three to five times more likely to be in a serious crash involving personal injury.
Over three years, the people with sleep apnea had a total of 250 crashes, compared with 123 among those without sleep apnea. Previous studies have identified a link between sleep.apnea and increased risk for crashes, but this is the first study to examine the severity of crashes.
The sleep apnea patients’ self-reported feelings of sleepiness were not linked to an increased risk of crashes, which suggests that the patients weren’t aware of the potential driving hazards caused by sleep apnea.