Stress is a major problem in today’s fast-paced society and can lead to serious psychosomatic complications. The ancient Chinese mind–body exercise of Tai Chi may provide an alternative and ...self-sustaining option to pharmaceutical medication for stressed individuals to improve their coping mechanisms. The protocol of this study is designed to evaluate whether Tai Chi practice is equivalent to standard exercise and whether the Tai Chi group is superior to a wait-list control group in improving stress coping levels. This study is a 6-week, three-arm, parallel, randomized, clinical trial designed to evaluate Tai Chi practice against standard exercise and a Tai Chi group against a nonactive control group over a period of 6 weeks with a 6-week follow-up. A total of 72 healthy adult participants (aged 18–60 years) who are either Tai Chi naïve or have not practiced Tai Chi in the past 12 months will be randomized into a Tai Chi group (n = 24), an exercise group (n = 24) or a wait-list group (n = 24). The primary outcome measure will be the State Trait Anxiety Inventory with secondary outcome measures being the Perceived Stress Scale 14, heart rate variability, blood pressure, Short Form 36 and a visual analog scale. The protocol is reported using the appropriate Standard Protocol Items: Recommendations for Interventional Trials (SPIRIT) items.
Driver drowsiness and loss of vigilance are a major cause of road accidents. Monitoring physiological signals while driving provides the possibility of detecting and warning of drowsiness and ...fatigue. The aim of this paper is to maximize the amount of drowsiness-related information extracted from a set of electroencephalogram (EEG), electrooculogram (EOG), and electrocardiogram (ECG) signals during a simulation driving test. Specifically, we develop an efficient fuzzy mutual-information (MI)- based wavelet packet transform (FMIWPT) feature-extraction method for classifying the driver drowsiness state into one of predefined drowsiness levels. The proposed method estimates the required MI using a novel approach based on fuzzy memberships providing an accurate-information content-estimation measure. The quality of the extracted features was assessed on datasets collected from 31 drivers on a simulation test. The experimental results proved the significance of FMIWPT in extracting features that highly correlate with the different drowsiness levels achieving a classification accuracy of 95%-97% on an average across all subjects.
Nurses' inherently stressful occupation leaves them at a higher risk of developing negative mental states (stress, anxiety, and depression). However, research examining the effect of negative mental ...states on these health professionals' cognitive performance is sparse. Thus, the present study aimed to assess the link between negative mental states and cognitive performance in nurses (n = 53). Negative mental state data was obtained using the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale, brain activity was measured using electroencephalography, and finally, cognitive performance was assessed using the Cognistat and the Mini-Mental State Examination. Significant negative correlations (p < .05) were observed between anxiety and attention, and all three negative mental states and memory performance. Electroencephalographic changes indicated that increases in anxiety were significantly associated (p < .05) with decreases in gamma reactivity at fronto-central sites. The current study suggests that higher levels of negative mental states are associated with domain-specific cognitive impairments, and variations in gamma reactivity; possibly reflecting less optimal cortical functioning.
This study investigated the changes in electroencephalography (EEG) activity in train drivers during a monotonous train-driving session. Four combinations of EEG activities were also compared to ...investigate the difference in performance of these equations. The four equations tested were equation 1 (θ/β), equation 2 (θ/(α+β)), equation 3 ((θ+α)/β), and equation 4 ((θ+α)/(α+β)). A total of fifty male train drivers were recruited to perform a 30-min monotonous train-driving task while 2-channels of EEG (frontal and temporal) were recorded. At the frontal site, significant differences were found for theta (p=0.045) and alpha (0.0001) activities, and at the temporal site, significant differences were found for delta (p=0.007) and theta (0.01) activities. For the average of frontal and temporal site activities, significant differences were found for delta (p=0.004), theta (p=0.001), and beta (p=0.048). Significant difference were found for temporal site for equation 1 (θ/β) (p=0.04), and equation 4 ((θ+α)/(α+β)) (p=0.02), and for the average of frontal and temporal site activities, significant differences were found for all four equations (equation 1 (p=0.001), equation 2 (p=0.006), equation 3 (p=0.04), and equation 4 (p=0.002)). These findings can be utilised as a potential fatigue indicator.
The 21st century has brought a growing and significant focus on performance and health within the workforce, with the aim of improving the health and performance of the blue- and white-collar ...workforce. The present research investigated heart rate variability (HRV) and psychological performance between blue and white-collar workers to determine if differences were evident. A total of 101 workers (
= 48 white-collar,
= 53 blue-collar, aged 19-61 years) underwent a three lead electrocardiogram to obtain HRV data during baseline (10 min) and active (working memory and attention) phases. The Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery, specifically the spatial working memory, attention switching task, rapid visual processing and the spatial span, were used. Differences in neurocognitive performance measures indicated that white-collar workers were better able to detect sequences and make less errors than blue-collar workers. The heart rate variability differences showed that white-collar workers exhibit lower levels of cardiac vagal control during these neuropsychological tasks. These initial findings provide some novel insights into the relationship between occupation and psychophysiological processes and further highlight the interactions between cardiac autonomic variables and neurocognitive performance in blue and white-collar workers.
This book on "Worker and Public Health and Safety: Current Views" brings together current scholarly work and opinions in the form of original papers and reviews related to this field of study. It ...provides important and recent scientific reading as well as topical medical and occupational information and research in areas of immediate relevance, such as chronic and occupational diseases, worker safety and performance, job strain, workload, injuries, accident and errors, risks and management, fitness, burnout, psychological and mental disorders including stress, therapy, job satisfaction, musculoskeletal symptoms and pain, socio-economic factors, dust pollution, pesticides, noise, pathogens, and related areas.
The COVID-19 pandemic has incited a rise in anxiety, with uncertainty regarding the specific impacts and risk factors across multiple populations. A qualitative systematic review was conducted to ...investigate the prevalence and associations of anxiety in different sample populations in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic. Four databases were utilised in the search (Medline, EMBASE, CINAHL, and PsycINFO). The review period commenced in April 2021 and was finalised on 5 July 2021. A total of 3537 studies were identified of which 87 were included in the review (sample size: 755,180). Healthcare workers had the highest prevalence of anxiety (36%), followed by university students (34.7%), the general population (34%), teachers (27.2%), parents (23.3%), pregnant women (19.5%), and police (8.79%). Risk factors such as being female, having pre-existing mental conditions, lower socioeconomic status, increased exposure to infection, and being younger all contributed to worsened anxiety. The review included studies published before July 2021; due to the ongoing nature of the COVID-19 pandemic, this may have excluded relevant papers. Restriction to only English papers and a sample size > 1000 may have also limited the range of papers included. These findings identify groups who are most vulnerable to developing anxiety in a pandemic and what specific risk factors are most common across multiple populations.
Electrophysiological research has previously investigated monotony and the cardiac health of drivers independently; however, few studies have explored the association between the two. As such the ...present study aimed to examine the impact of monotonous train driving (indicated by electroencephalogram (EEG) activity) on an individual's cardiac health as measured by heart rate variability (HRV). Sixty-three train drivers participated in the present study, and were required to complete a monotonous train driver simulator task. During this task, a 32 lead EEG and a three-lead electrocardiogram were recorded from each participant. In the present analysis, the low (LF) and high frequency (HF) HRV parameters were associated with delta (
< 0.05), beta (
= 0.03) and gamma (
< 0.001) frequency EEG variables. Further, total HRV was associated with gamma activity, while sympathovagal balance (i.e., LF:HF ratio) was best associated fronto-temporal delta activity (
= 0.02). HRV and EEG parameters appear to be coupled, with the parameters of the delta and gamma EEG frequency bands potentially being the most important to this coupling. These relationships provide insight into the impact of a monotonous task on the cardiac health of train drivers, and may also be indicative of strategies employed to combat fatigue or engage with the driving task.
A number of health issues have been identified as prevalent within the Australian heavy vehicle driving population. Mental illnesses, such as depression and anxiety, are among those disorders that ...have been regularly reported, however, the contributing factors are yet to be elucidated.
This study aimed to assess the associations between workplace factors such as years of employment, social interaction and shift length, with depressive and anxious symptomology in a cohort of 60 Australian heavy vehicle drivers.
Significant positive associations were identified between depression and alcohol use (P = 0.044), coffee consumption (P = 0.037), number of accidents during career (P = < 0.004), and number of hours driving per shift (P ≤ 0.001). Anxiety was found to be positively associated with a number of hours driving per week (P ≤ 0.001), and the number of accidents or near misses during a driving career (P = 0.039).
Several workplace factors were identified as being correlated to depression or anxiety within this cohort, suggesting potential changes to rostering systems and education regarding alcohol use may benefit the mental health of this driver population.
Objective
This randomized controlled trial was undertaken to determine whether 12 weeks of Tai Chi (TC) practice can reduce anxiety in healthy but stressed people.
Method
Fifty participants were ...randomized into TC (n=17), exercise (n=17), and wait‐list (WL) groups (n=16). Outcome measures used were State Trait Anxiety Inventory, Perceived Stress Scale 14 (PSS14), blood pressure and heart rate variability, visual analogue scale (VAS), and Short Form 36.
Results
Significant improvements were observed from baseline for both TC and exercise groups for both state (p <0.01) and trait (p <0.01) anxiety, PSS14 (p <0.01), VAS (p <0.01), mental health domain (p <0.01), and vitality domain (p <0.01). Superior outcomes were also observed for TC when compared with WL for state and trait anxiety (p <0.01) and mental health domain (p <0.05).
Conclusion
TC reduces stress levels in healthy individuals and provides a safer, cost effective, and less physically vigorous alternative to exercise.
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