Shift Workers

Conduct mandatory education to inform individuals how to better cope with shift work. The human body follows a 24-25 h period called the circadian clock. This internal clock regulates cycles in 

Shift differential pay alone does not improve worker morale or performance. 

Provide special orientation sessions for new shift workers. 

Never schedule organizational training after a work shift. 

Conduct job-training sessions before or during the scheduled work shift. 

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The final category is termed the sleep-wake schedule disorders. These are seen in people who get their days and nights turned around. The most common examples are shift workers and travelers with jet lag. Additionally, in the elderly, especially those with dementia, a malfunction in the circadian biological rhythm that regulates sleep can leave them awake and alert at night but drowsy and sleeping during the day. 

Because of the short half-life, agent best for problems with sleep latency, rather than duration of sleep or number of awakenings (e.g., shift workers)... 

Woods, E., Clifford, M.N., Gibbs, M., Hampton, S., Arendt, J., and Morgan, L., Estimation of mean intakes of 14 classes of dietary phenols in a population of male shift workers, Proc. Nutr. Soc., 62, 60A, 2003. 

Bennett, G., Food Choices, Dietary Patterns and Circulation Adaptation in Shift Workers An Investigation into the Possible Impact on Coronary Heart Disease Risk, BSc Thesis, University of Surrey, 2001. 

Sachar EJ, Heilman L, Roffwarg HP, et al Disrupted 24 hour patterns of cortisol secretion in psychotic depressives. Arch Gen Psychiatry 28 19-24, 1973 Sack RL, Blood ML, Lewy AJ Melatonin administration to night shift workers an update. Sleep Research 24 539, 1995... 

Another reason to take melatonin during the day is if you are a shift worker and your schedule rotates every week or so. For example, Lisa worked as a receptionist at a hospital emergency room. As we all know, emergency rooms don t close for the night and must always have people on staff. Lisa s work schedule was to work 9 30 p.m. to 7 30 a.m. for seven nights and then have seven days off. Of course, during her seven days off... 

Studies in both animals and humans indicate that taking melatonin is extremely safe, with very few people reporting any side effects. However, possible side effects of taking it for months or years have not been examined. Most melatonin available over-the-counter is chemically synthesized and not extracted from the pineal gland of animals. Several pharmaceutical companies are currently developing melatonin analogues (closely related molecules that act just like melatonin) for the potential treatment of jet lag and to help shift workers better adapt to their schedules. 

After each shift, workers in the nitroglycerine department should change their clothing and have a bath, since accidents have been reported in which a worker returning home in his working clothes has caused his family to suffer from nitroglycerine poisoning (Lazarev [105]). 

Shift workers have a similar difficulty in trying to stay awake at a time when they would normally be asleep. Nurses working an evening shift may start to get sleepy while they are still at work, while those on the morning shift may have a great deal of difficulty getting up well before dawn. 

Purnell MT, Feyer AM, Herbison GP. The impact of a nap opportunity during the night shift on the performance and alertness of 12-h shift workers. J Sleep Res 2002 77 219-227. 

Holbrook MI, White MH, Hutt MJ. Increasing awareness of sleep hygiene in rotating shift workers arming law-enforcement officers against impaired performance. Percept Mot Skills 1994 79 520-522. 

One other area of recent debate in workers compensation cases involves shift-work-maladaption syndrome. These cases usually involve workers who are unable to adapt to working a third shift. Workers asserting these claims usually complain of being unable to adapt their personal sleeping schedules to the late shift, and suffer from continued sleep deprivation. American courts have rejected shift-work-maladaption syndrome as a compensable injury under the workers compensation definitions of injury, and generally hold that harm occasioned by the mere scheduling of hours is not enough to state a claim (53). A worker must show that a specific injury has been caused by a specific workplace condition or job function. 

Evidence suggests that moderate to severe sleepiness is virtually omnipresent for night shift workers. A recent assessment of 363 shift workers with symptoms of shift work sleep disorder (23) found their nocturnal sleepiness level, studied the night after 3-5 consecutive night shifts, to approximate sleepiness levels after a night of total sleep deprivation (24). The shift workers mean score on the Multiple Sleep Latency Test (MSLT) at night was 2.75 min. Further, the MSLT score for 90.1% of the shift workers was < 6 min, a level most experts believe to be associated with behavioral impairment and increased accident risk. 

Tepas DI, Walsh JK, Armstrong DA. Comprehensive study of the sleep of shift workers. In Johnson LC, Tepas DI, Colquhoun WP, Colligan MJ, eds. Biological Rhythms, Sleep and Shiftwork. New York Spectrum, 1981 347-356. 

Circadian rhythm sleep disorders jet lag insomnia experienced by shift workers and delayed sleep phase syndrome (sometimes seen in students who are enjoying their first experiences outside the family environment and who go to bed too late). This is something that should be discussed with the present client. 

Xenobiotic metabolism has been observed to vary with circadian and seasonal cycles in wild animals. These correspond to variations in Phase I and Phase II enzyme production during breeding cycles. In humans, shift workers have been found to have increased rates of heart disease and metabolic illness. This has been attributed to the finding that one-fifth of liver enzymes show circadian rhythms. 

Thus, there has been considerable interest in evaluating the use of exogenously administered melatonin to normalize sleep patterns, especially in cases where the normal secretion of the hormone has been disrupted, e.g., in jet lag, shift workers, and the elderly. Clinical studies have demonstrated the ability of exogenously administered melatonin to synchro-... 

Accidents of the first kind result in the death of one day employee per incident and occur with a frequency of 2.92 x 10 accidents per year. Accidents of the second kind result in the death of 100 shift workers per incident and occur with a frequency of 8.76 x 10 accidents per year. 

Quality of life may be improved by appropriate treatment. Eor example, treatment of OSA with nasal CRAP improved the number of years of good health by 5.5 quality-adjusted life years. Hypnotic therapy has also been found to markedly improve both the disorder and quality of life in shift workers. ... 

Manufacturing Scrap Number of Shifts Workers per machine SG A, R D+Profit Material... 

A spectrophotometric technique has been used for quantifying pg/mL levels of free and acid-labile (chemically bound) carbon disulfide in the blood of rats (Lam and DiStefano 1982, 1983). This technique is based on measuring the absorbance at 430 nm of a yellow cupric diethyldithiocarbamate complex that is formed by reacting carbon disulfide in blood with Viles reagent in the presence of acid and heat. A headspace sampler connected to GC equipped with a sulfur-specific flame photometric detector (FPD) has been developed for measuring low levels of free and acid-labile carbon disulfide in the blood of shift workers exposed to carbon disulfide (Campbell et al. 1985). A detection limit of 15.2 pg of carbon disulfide/L of blood was achieved. Concentrations of free and acid-labile carbon disulfide have also been determined by GS/MS (Brugnone et al. 1993, 1994 Perbellini et al. 1994). 

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