Short takes: sleep apnea
By HME News Staff
Updated Tue May 16, 2017
The U.S. Supreme Court's refusal to hear a case from a truck driver who claimed his employer violated his rights by requiring him to get tested for sleep apnea opens the door for trucking companies to more widely require the tests, according to Trucks.com. The court's decision in April follows Robert Parker's appeal of a lower court decision that Crete Carrier didn't violate his rights under the American with Disabilities Act when it required him to be tested because he had a body mass index of 35 or higher. While there are currently no federal regulations for tracking or treating sleep apnea in transportation workers, the government has been working on guidelines for more than a year…Sleep apnea cases have increased five-fold in the U.S. military over a decade, according to a recent study in the Journal of Sleep Research. Rates of sleep apnea and insomnia among service members are now about double those seen in the general U.S. population, the journal reports. Medical visits for sleep apnea increased from 44 per 1,000 service members per year in 2005 to 273 per 1,000 per year in 2014, researchers found. Sleep apnea rates were highest among men, African Americans, senior officers, Army personnel and those over the age of 40, they found.
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