The Risks Of Fatigue

Do you find it difficult to measure, manage and mitigate against fatigue in your workplace? Wesley Corporate Health and Fatigue Science offers a breakthrough solution to all three problems with the ReadiBand^TM System.

What is fatigue?
Fatigue is a state of tiredness associated with prolonged work and/or prolonged wakefulness. The two most common sources are:

• a depleted sleep reservoir, due to acute sleep loss or chronic sleep restriction, and
• altered sleep/wake cycles, due to shift work or crossing time zones.  

Common causes of these include medical factors such as obstructive sleep apnoea, chronic fatigue syndrome, anaemia, heart failure and restless leg syndrome, and work or environmental factors such as jet lag or stress.

Fatigue impacts on health 
Sleep deprivation has similar effects on performance to that of alcohol intoxication. It can impair many physical and cognitive qualities such as:

• judgement and decision making
• sustained attention and alertness
• short term memory
• communication
• reaction time
• hand-eye co-ordination

Research has shown that insufficient sleep can also interfere with glucose regulation, appetite control, insulin resistance and weight management, all which can be linked to conditions such as obesity and type 2 diabetes.

Therefore, people who do not have adequate sleep are more likely than well rested people to fall victim to fatigue and experience industrial or automotive accidents and have work-related performance problems. Overall, inadequate sleep can result in increases in the utilisation of healthcare resources and reduced quality of life, impaired day-to-day functioning and increased depression, anxiety and alcohol abuse.

The ReadiBand^TM system empowers employees with opportunities to reduce the personal risks of developing diabetes, cancer, obesity, and the other health problems that have been associated with a lack of quality sleep.

Fatigue Risk in the Australian Workplace
• 16% of the Australian workforce are shiftworkers and experience twice the injury rate of non-shiftworkers

• 30% of heavy vehicle accidents have fatigue as the primary or underlying cause

• Fatigue related accidents account for 80% of accident claim costs

• In surface mining alone, 60-65% of truck-haulage accidents are directly related to operator fatigue

Unfortunately, most people are poor judges of their own sleep quality and their fatigue status, so unless they utilise technology such as Fatigue Science’s ReadiBand™, they often do not realise they need help.

Beating Fatigue Risk with The Fatigue Risk Management System (FRMS)

The ReadiBand™ system combines principles based on over 50 years of validated scientific research with recent advances in fatigue-factor-measurement technology and computerised performance-effectiveness modeling.  It is very easy to use and staff are simply required to wear it continuously for 7 days. The overall FRMS can be completed in six simple steps: 

For more information on how Welsey Corporate Health can help you battle fatigue in the workplace, call Louise Reeve on 3234 2609 or contact us online at http://www.weshealth.com.au/