The Effect of Blast Exposure on Sleep and Daytime Sleepiness in U.S. Marine Corps Breachers

http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA528334&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf

The Effect of Blast Exposure on Sleep and Daytime Sleepiness in U.S. Marine
Corps Breachers

Amanda Kelley
Jeremy Athy
Melinda Vasbinder
Jim Chiaramonte
Edna Rat

USAARL Report No. 2010-16


Traumatic brain injury resulting from blast exposure is an increasingly common problem among Soldiers returning from combat deployment. In order to understand the extent of damage resulting from blast exposure, this study examined students and instructors at the United States Marine Corps Methods of Dynamic Entry School during a two week training period. The results of the study suggest that actigraphy and subjective sleep measures are sensitive to changes in sleep quality/quantity as well as daytime sleepiness over the training session. The extent to which these changes are associated with blast exposure rather than other factors related to the
training period will be explored further in a large scale study of breacher crewmen.