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Risk of Fatigue at Work

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Fatigue Management

Abstract

Fatigue could be determined as a depletion of cognitive recourses that prevents a person from performing work safely and effectively. It is a workplace hazard that affects the health and safety of both the employee and his or her colleagues. The term “fatigue” with a widespread usage in occupational medicine is a complex phenomenon definition of which is very difficult. Other terms such as drowsiness and sleepiness that are often used instead of fatigue have different definitions. These are actually two different, although related, states. Sleepiness is the tendency to fall asleep, but fatigue is the body’s response to deficits in subjective capacity. When physical and mental exertion exceeds current capacity, fatigue is represented by an inability to function at the desired level. Workers with fatigue are more likely to experience job absenteeism than workers without fatigue.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Occupational Sleep Research Center, Baharloo Hospital, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

    Zahra Banafsheh Alemohammad MD & Khosro Sadeghniiat-Haghighi MD

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  1. Zahra Banafsheh Alemohammad MD
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  2. Khosro Sadeghniiat-Haghighi MD
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas, USA

    Amir Sharafkhaneh

  2. Division of Public Mental Health and Population Sciences, School of Medicine, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA

    Max Hirshkowitz

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Alemohammad, Z.B., Sadeghniiat-Haghighi, K. (2018). Risk of Fatigue at Work. In: Sharafkhaneh, A., Hirshkowitz, M. (eds) Fatigue Management. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-8607-1_14

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-8607-1_14

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