Fatigue Assessment Vs. Military Performance

• Main Author: Sandoval, Lidia Denisse Bustos
• Format: Dissertation
• Language: English
• Published: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses 01-01-2018
• Subjects: Algorithms; Armed forces; Biology; Computer science; Ergonomics; Fatigue; Heart rate; Human performance; Information overload; Keywords; Metabolism; Military personnel; Military studies; Military training; Nutritional status; Physiology; Regulation; Sleep; Workloads
• ISBN: 9798835556090

Fatigue is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon resulting from various factors, and it manifests itself in various forms. Indeed, a number of different definitions of fatigue exist, often dependent upon the experimental model employed and/or the conditions under which they occur.Fatigue degrades performance and well-being leading to error, incident, and accident in operational settings. An operational setting is one in which effective human performance is crucial to a successful outcome. If the human fails, the system fails. Technological advances are enabling 24/7 operations and the integration of human activity around the globe, thus increasing exposure to the factors creating fatigue.Military operations are not exempt from this. In fact, the physical demands of combat impose unique stresses on soldiers not seen with any type of civilian occupations. Besides typical operational stressors, soldiers, are exposed to extreme environments, heavy workload, inadequate sleep, information overload, dehydration and impaired nutritional status. The combination of these stressors can cause serious physiological impairments, therefore decreasing physical and military performance on the battlefield.On the other hand, just as its definitions, assessments of fatigue have also taken various forms, ranging from objective measurements to subjective self-report assessments, and incorporating varying dimensions.Therefore, the main objectives of the present study were stablished as follows: 1) To develop a fatigue assessment method based on physiological monitoring and, 2) To validate the proposed assessment method and demonstrate its applicability in occupational settings.To fulfill these goals, 3 articles were elaborated. The first one corresponds to a systematic review developed with the objective of summarizing studies concerning fatigue assessment in the military context and the second, was a complementary review focused on highly intensity training scenarios, elaborated in order to determine the suitability of physiological variables to monitor different stages of fatigue and related conditions. For both cases, procedure was based in the guidelines of PRISMA Statement. Consequently, based on the found scientific evidence, the third article included a proposal of a fatigue assessment model and its validation in military occupational settings. Equipment, procedure, results and conclusions from the experience were also gathered along this final publication.Results were able to show that the proposed alert-based system led to the successful identification of the most stressful and physically demanding activities and their direct impact on physiological parameters. Conclusions from the experience indicated that by providing a systematic and multivariate approach, this method has the potential to improve fatigue management, allowing early detection of potential physical impairments, reducing the number of medical evaluations performed and minimising unnecessary delays in treatment.As a final remark, it was stated that this assessment method constitutes only a first approach in which several improvements can be made in order to enable not just a retrospective but also continuous and real time assessments for applications not just in military groups but also for any occupational considered sample.