No abstract

The objective of this case study was to test the impact in law enforcement personnel of an innovative self-regulation and resilience building program delivered via an iPad (Apple Inc, Cupertino, California) app and personal mentoring. The Stress Resilience Training System (SRTS) app includes training on stress and its effects, HRV coherence biofeedback, a series of HeartMath self-regulation techniques (The Institute of HeartMath, Boulder Creek, California), and HRV-controlled games. The stressful nature of law enforcement work is well established, and the need for meaningful and effective stress resilience training programs is becoming better understood, as it has been in the military. Law enforcement and military service share many stress-related features including psychological stressors connected with the mission, extended duty cycles, and exposure to horrific scenes of death and injury. San Diego (California) Police Department personnel who participated in the study were 12 sworn officers and 2 dispatchers, 10 men and 4 women. The SRTS intervention comprised an introductory 2-hour training session, 6 weeks of individualized learning and practice with the SRTS app, and four 1-hour telephone mentoring sessions by experienced HeartMath mentors spread over a four week period. Outcome measures were the Personal and Organizational Quality Assessment (POQA) survey, the mentors' reports of their observations, and records of participants' comments from the mentoring sessions. The POQA results were overwhelmingly positive: All four main scales showed improvement; Emotional Vitality improved by 25% (P=.05) and Physical Stress improved by 24% (P=.01). Eight of the nine subscales showed improvement, with the Stress subscale, perhaps the key measure of the study, improving by approximately 40% (P=.06). Participant responses were also uniformly positive and enthusiastic. Individual participants praised the program and related improvements in both on-the-job performance and personal and familial situations. The results support the efficacy of the program to achieve its goal of building stress resilience and improving officer wellness by providing practical self-regulation skills for better management of emotional energy. We conclude that the SRTS program for building resilience and improving psychological wellness can be as effective for law enforcement as it is for military personnel.

The cognitive efficiency of 14 divers was studied during 1-hour exposure to water of 40°F (4.4°C) and 78°F (25.6°C). Reasoning ability was tested using a sentence comprehension task presented at the beginning and end of each test session. Vigilance was tested by requiring subjects to detect the onset of a faint peripheral light during the performance of a two-man pipe assembly task. Memory was tested by requiring subjects to learn a number of “facts” during the dive, with retention tested by recall and recognition on land, after a 40-min delay. Despite a mean drop in rectal temperature of 1.3°F (0.72°C), neither reasoning nor vigilance was impaired. Memory performance did deteriorate, though it is suggested that this may reflect a peripheral context-dependent memory effect. It is concluded that a well-motivated subject may be cognitively unimpaired despite a marked drop in deep body temperature.

It was hypothesized that in diving, danger-induced stress may contribute to performance decrement by narrowing perceptual scope. A study was conducted to examine the effect of task load and type of underwater exposure on response time to a signal light in the visual periphery. Novice divers monitored a peripheral light alone, or while simultaneously performing a central addition or dial-watching task. Each subject was tested on the surface, in a diving tank, and in the open ocean. It was found that the central tasks did not interfere with peripheral vigilance on the surface. During diving, a distinct subgroup of the dual-task subjects exhibited markedly increased response times to the peripheral light while maintaining near constant performance on the central tasks. Their behavior appeared more closely related to diving risk than to other environmental factors. The remaining dual-task subjects, and the light alone group, were almost uneffected by underwater exposure. The hypothesis was considered partially validated.

In this study, 15 male subjects performed a central visual acuity task (Landolt ring detections) and a peripheral light detection task during what they thought to be a 60-ft. dive in a pressure chamber. There was no actual pressure change. A 15-man control group performed the same tasks at an outside location. Experimental measures included a posttest anxiety checklist and continuous heart rate recording. The chamber group showed significantly higher anxiety scores and also a significantly higher heart rate throughout the experiment. There was no difference between the groups with regard to correct Landolt detections, although the chamber group responded somewhat slower. Peripheral detection, however, was severely and significantly degraded in the chamber group. It was concluded that perceptual narrowing had been demonstrated as a result of psychological stress associated with exposure to the “dangerous” pressure-chamber.