Journal of clinical sleep medicine : JCSM : official publication of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine | 2019
Eye-Blink Parameters Detect On-Road Track-Driving Impairment Following Severe Sleep Deprivation.
Abstract
STUDY OBJECTIVES\nDrowsiness leads to 20% of fatal road crashes, while inability to assess drowsiness has hampered drowsiness interventions. This study examined the accuracy of eye-blink parameters for detecting drowsiness related driving impairment in real time.\n\n\nMETHODS\nTwelve participants undertook two sessions of 2-hour track-driving in an instrumented vehicle following a normal night s sleep or 32 to 34 hours of extended wake in a randomized crossover design. Eye-blink parameters and lane excursion events were monitored continuously.\n\n\nRESULTS\nSleep deprivation increased the rates of out-of-lane driving events and early drive terminations. Episodes of prolonged eyelid closures, blink duration, the ratio of amplitude to velocity of eyelid closure, and John s Drowsiness Score (JDS, a composite score) were also increased following sleep deprivation. A time-on-task (drive duration) effect was evident for out-of-lane events rate and most eye-blink parameters after sleep deprivation. The JDS demonstrated the strongest association with the odds of out-of-lane events in the same minute, whereas measures of blink duration and prolonged eye closure were stronger indicators of risk for out-of-lane events over longer periods of 5 minutes and 15 minutes, respectively. Eye-blink parameters also achieved moderate accuracies (specificities from 70.12% to 84.15% at a sensitivity of 50%) for detecting out-of-lane events in the same minute, with stronger associations over longer timeframes of 5 minutes to 15 minutes.\n\n\nCONCLUSIONS\nEyelid closure parameters are useful tools for monitoring and predicting drowsiness-related driving impairment (out-of-lane events) that could be utilized for monitoring drowsiness and assessing the efficacy of drowsiness interventions.\n\n\nCLINICAL TRIAL REGISTRATION\nThis study is registered with the Australian New Zealand Clinical Trial Registry (ANCTR), http://www.anzctr.org.au/TrialSearch.aspx ACTRN12612000102875.\n\n\nCITATION\nShekari Soleimanloo S, Wilkinson VE, Cori JM,Westlake J, Stevens B, Downey LA, Shiferaw BA, Rajaratnam SMW, Howard ME. Eye-blink parameters detect on-road track-driving impairment following severe sleep deprivation. J Clin Sleep Med. 2019;15(9):1271-1284.