Aviation and space medicine

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The space medicine concerned with the preservation of the health of users of aircraft and spaceships . The English term aviation medicine encompasses the areas of aviation medicine and space medicine.

It extends over the areas:

Space medicine comprises the areas:

Aviation and space medicine also deals with psychological and physiological testing for personnel selection. A field bordering on aviation medicine is travel medicine .

Aviation medicine as additional training for specialists

This article or paragraph presents the situation in Germany . Help us to describe the situation in other countries.

Specialists in the fields of internal medicine , general medicine or occupational medicine can, after successfully completing a corresponding additional training, use the additional designation of flight medicine in addition to their specialist designation.

Continuing medical education is a matter for the state medical associations in Germany. The German Medical Association has a coordinating function to standardize further training courses, but it is not a chamber in the legal sense, but merely a working group of the state medical associations.

As an overview of the contents of the additional advanced training course in aviation medicine, the following is an excerpt from the model advanced training regulations 2003/2010 of the German Medical Association, which are generally implemented by the state medical associations. Interested parties must call the regional medical association responsible for them.

"

Definition:
The additional training course in aviation medicine, in addition to specialist medical skills, includes aerospace medicine, including the physical and medical characteristics of being in the air and space as well as the well-being of the flight personnel and passengers.

Training
objective : The aim of the additional training is to acquire specialist competence in aviation medicine after completing the prescribed training time and training content as well as the training course.

Prerequisites for acquiring the title:
Specialist certification in the field of internal medicine or general medicine or occupational medicine

Further training time:
6 months further training with a further training officer for aviation medicine according to § 5 Paragraph 1 Clause 2
180 hours of further training course according to § 4 Paragraph 8 in aviation medicine
deviating from this Instead of the 6-month further training in aviation medicine, a collegial discussion regularly completed over a period of one year, taking place every two weeks under the responsibility of the head of an aero-medical center recognized by the Federal Aviation Office, recognized as a different but equivalent further training.

Further training content:
Acquisition of knowledge, experience and skills in
- clinical flight physiology
- assessment of performance and aviation
usability
- flight psychology - fitness for air travel
- principles of the primary and secondary transport of sick and handicapped people in airplanes and helicopters
- medical equipment on board commercial aircraft
- Aeromedical advice for long-distance travelers on malaria prophylaxis, entry regulations, hygiene measures and medication adjustments in the event of a
time zone
shift - Experience (during a crew rotation ) in large commercial aircraft with a time zone shift (at least 6 time zones) - FREMEC and MEDA forms from the IATA for sick and disabled passengers
 

"

- German Medical Association 2010 : (sample) training regulations 2003, p. 152.

Space medicine

More than 560 astronauts have been deployed in space travel since 1961. Most of them were highly selected, trained people. The ESA ( European Space Agency ) began to set up its own space corps in 1978. With the Spacelab missions in 1983, European astronauts were sent into space for the first time and experience was gained with the physiology and pathology of being in space. Based on previous experience in manned space travel, ESA has developed the following criteria for the recruitment of astronauts:

  • Health check according to JAR-FCL 3, class 2 (carried out by a flight doctor (AME) approved by the national aero-medical authority)
  • No diseases at all
  • No drug, alcohol or tobacco addiction
  • All joints must have unrestricted mobility and normal functionality
  • Prescription in both eyes 100% (20/20) prescription. Correction with glasses or contact lenses allowed
  • No mental disorders whatsoever
  • High cognitive, mental and character skills for efficient work in an environment with high intellectual and social demands

Spacemen should be healthy and in a physical condition appropriate to their age. Top athletes and over-trained people have no advantage in space travel. Excessively developed muscles can even be a disadvantage for astronauts in weightlessness.

With the opening of commercial space travel to non-physically selected people, the medical risk of space travel increases. The medical problems vary according to the duration of the space flight. They concern the physiological adaptation to weightlessness, the psychological problems of isolation and the distance from the earth and numerous emergency situations, for example due to a loss of pressure with the following hypoxia or compression sickness. When the spaceship takes off, significant acoustic loads, vibrations and accelerations occur, which can cause serious problems for untrained passengers. Anxiety reactions, nausea and hypocapnia are often the result. A prolonged stay in space leads to a reduction in calcium salts in the bones, more frequent kidney stones, a change in the plasma volume, cardiovascular deconditioning and muscle atrophy of the legs. Further problems arise when the astronaut is back on earth after a long stay in space. Cardiovascular regulation is often disturbed, the re-existing force of gravity leads to dizziness, and the water and mineral balance have to adjust.

Space pharmacy

Medicines were carried on the space flights of the Apollo mission . These are listed in a NASA publication, including pain relievers , antibiotics, and anti- emetics (anti-nausea drugs). In the spacesuit, however, the astronauts could not swallow drugs. NASA therefore worked four injection syringes into the space suits, so-called astropics. These astropes contained sterile solutions of pethidine (for pain), metaraminol (for shock), cyclizine (for nausea and dizziness) and amphetamine (for fatigue). The astronaut was able to activate the astropen, which then automatically performed an injection.

See also

literature

  • J. Hinkelbein, E. Glaser (Ed.): Aviation medicine. UniMed-Verlag, Bremen 2007.
  • S. Ruff and Hubertus Strughold : Outline of aviation medicine . Johann Ambrosius Barth, Munich 1957.
  • Nick Kanas, Dietrich Manzey: Space psychology and psychiatry. Springer, Dordrecht 2007, ISBN 978-1-4020-6769-3 .
  • Hans Pongratz : Compendium of aviation medicine. New edition / reprint. FlMedInstLw, 2006, ISBN 3-00-016306-9 .
  • Roy L. DeHart, Jeffrey R. Davis: Fundamentals of aerospace medicine. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, Philadelphia 2002, ISBN 0-7817-2898-3 .
  • Michael R. Barratt, Sam L. Pool: Principles of clinical medicine for space flight. Springer, New York 2008, ISBN 978-0-387-98842-9 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ (sample) further training regulations 2003/2010 , of the Federal Medical Association in the version of June 25, 2010 (accessed on January 9, 2017; PDF; 741 kB)
  2. ↑ FAQ: ESA astronauts - training and tasks. European Space Agency (ESA), December 16, 2016, accessed March 24, 2019 .
  3. ↑ Jan Stepanek, Rebecca S Blue, Scott Parazynski: Space Medicine in the Era of Civilian Spaceflight . In: New England Journal of Medicine . tape 380 , no. 11 , March 14, 2019, ISSN  0028-4793 , p. 1053-1060 , doi : 10.1056 / NEJMra1609012 ( nejm.org [accessed March 19, 2019]).
  4. ^ RT Jennings: Managing space motion sickness . In: Journal of Vestibular Research: Equilibrium & Orientation . tape 8 , no. 1 , 1998, ISSN  0957-4271 , p. 67-70 , PMID 9416592 .
  5. ↑ SE Parazynski, AR Hargens, B Tucker, M Aratow, J Styf: Transcapillary fluid shifts in tissues of the head and neck during and after simulated microgravity . In: Journal of Applied Physiology . tape 71 , no. 6 , 1991, ISSN  8750-7587 , pp. 2469–2475 , doi : 10.1152 / jappl.1991.71.6.2469 ( physiology.org [accessed March 19, 2019]).
  6. ^ WH Cooke, IV Ames JE, AA Crossman, JF Cox, TA Kuusela: Nine months in space: effects on human autonomic cardiovascular regulation . In: Journal of Applied Physiology (Bethesda, Md .: 1985) . tape 89 , no. 3 , 2000, ISSN  8750-7587 , p. 1039-1045 , doi : 10.1152 / jappl.2000.89.3.1039 , PMID 10956348 .
  7. ^ NASA: Apollo Medical Kits. Retrieved July 8, 2019 .
  8. ^ NASA: Apollo Medical Kits. Retrieved July 8, 2019 .
  9. ↑ Christiane Staiger: 50 years of Apollo 11. XING News, July 7, 2019, accessed on July 8, 2019 .