Publications by authors named "Veronica Garcia-Hansen"

Study Objectives: Unfamiliar environments are often poorly conducive to quality sleep, especially for patients within health and aged care settings. This scoping review aims to map available evidence regarding the sleep environment in rehabilitation, subacute, and aged care settings. It examines how these factors are measured and seeks to identify any reported standard metrics, guidelines, or methodologies.

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Article Synopsis
  • ICU environment affects patient recovery, with issues like noise and poor lighting impacting outcomes and staff wellbeing.
  • The ICU of the Future project aims to improve bedspace design and assess its effects on health metrics through innovative co-designed spaces.
  • This two-year study will involve various assessments (environment, sleep, delirium, etc.) comparing upgraded beds to standard ones to gather data on patient outcomes and the economic impact of improved ICU settings.
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Background: ICU survival is improving. However, many patients leave ICU with ongoing cognitive, physical, and/or psychological impairments and reduced quality of life. Many of the reasons for these ongoing problems are unmodifiable; however, some are linked with the ICU environment.

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Background: Young drivers are over-involved in sleepiness-related crashes. The alerting effects of bright light offer a potential countermeasure for driver sleepiness, either replacing or in conjunction with current countermeasures such as the use of caffeine.

Methods: Thirty young (18-25) chronically sleep-restricted drivers drove in a simulator under randomized conditions of continuous bright light ('Light,' 500 nm, 230μw/cm), caffeine ('Caffeine,' 100 mg caffeinated gum), or light and caffeine together ('Light + Caffeine'), after driving under a placebo condition ('Placebo,' decaffeinated gum, 555 nm light, 0.

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Young drivers (18-24 years) are over-represented in sleep-related crashes (comprising one in five fatal crashes in developed countries) primarily due to decreased sleep opportunity, lower tolerance for sleep loss, and ongoing maturation of brain areas associated with driving-related decision making. Impaired driving performance is the proximal reason for most car crashes. There is still a limited body of evidence examining the effects of sleep loss on young drivers' performance, with discrepancies in the methodologies used, and in the definition of outcomes.

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