Monday, February 04, 2013

Up to 85% of US Military has Sleep Disorder

Research into the US Military shows that up to 85% of military personnel has some form of a sleep disorder.


Eighty-five percent of U.S. military study participants had a clinically relevant sleep disorder, researchers say.

Lead author Dr. Vincent Mysliwiec, chief of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine at Madigan Army Medical Center in Tacoma, Wash., said 51 percent of had obstructive sleep apnea followed by 25 percent with insomnia.

The study involved an analysis of 725 diagnostic polysomnograms -- used to diagnose sleep problems -- performed in 2010 at Madigan Army Medical Center.

Study subjects were active duty military personnel from the U.S. Army, Air Force and Navy, comprising mostly men -- 93.2 percent -- and 85 percent were combat veterans. Sleep disorder diagnoses were adjudicated by a board certified sleep medicine physician.

The study, published in the journal Sleep, found the participants' mean self-reported home sleep duration was only 5.74 hours per night, and 41.8 percent reported sleeping 5 hours or less per night.

Individual sleep needs vary, but most adults need about 7 to 8 hours of nightly sleep to feel alert and well-rested during the day.

"While sleep deprivation is part of the military culture, the high prevalence of short sleep duration in military personnel with sleep disorders was surprising," Mysliwiec said in a statement. "The potential risk of increased accidents as well as long-term clinical consequences of both short sleep duration and a sleep disorder in our population is unknown." UPI
FACTS & FIGURES

Over 500,000 U.S. troops deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq since 2001 suffer from PTSD. All Voices

Every day about 22 veterans in the United States kill themselves, a rate that is about 20 percent higher than the Department of Veterans Affairs’ 2007 estimate, according to two-year study by a VA researcher. Washington Post

The U.S. military has been struggling to deal with the suicide crisis since numbers began rising in 2004. In 2012, the average was nearly one soldier suicide a day. NPR

The number of unemployed veterans rose above 800,000 in January, a spike that raises concerns about the long-term viability of efforts to find jobs for former military personnel. Stars and Stripes

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