Market: Medical residents, pilots, soldiers, truck
drivers and others frequently work long shifts which lead to
sleep-deprivation. Excessive sleep
deprivation or other mental incapacitation, including alcohol use, can lead to
poor decision making which in turn may result in avoidable accidents. For commercial motor carriers with a 2%
profit margin, a $25,000 accident can cost a company $1.2 million in profits
(USDOT). Almost 5,000 fatalities
and 85,000 injuries were reported in 2003 for accidents involving large trucks,
while more than 17,000 alcohol-related vehicle fatalities occurred in 2003
nationwide.
Competitors and Current Problems: Currently, the
only available methods for assessing alertness, or fitness for duty (FFD),
measure brain activity using electroencephalography or ocular measures that
require using eye trackers. These
methods have limited usefulness because they require expensive equipment, large
time windows, and are generally not well received by subjects. Given the cumbersome nature of the
available techniques for measuring fitness for duty, it would be desirable to
have a rapid technique for measuring fatigue and other types of physical or
mental impairment that gives a rapid assessment, with no need for highly
specialized and expensive equipment.
The Technology: Researchers and The University of
Texas Health Science Center at Houston have developed a novel device and
method to measure the ability to perceive a letter or number sequence. The device is portable, comprising a
simple LED display and a keypad for subject input. The reported sequence is
compared to the displayed sequence to detect changes in the speed of human
visual perception. This is a highly informative measurement for determining
operator changes due to fatigue, excessive stress, alcohol or drugs. Some of the
advantages of the present device and method include speed of measurement,
portability, cost to manufacture, and acceptability. The threshold of the device can be tuned
to the specific application, to a specific age group, or can be set to an
average baseline.
UTHSC-H Ref. No.: 2005-0050