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Decompression sickness during simulated extravehicular activity: ambulation vs. non-ambulation.

James T Webb¹, Devin P Beckstrand, Andrew A Pilmanis

¹Life Sciences Group, Wyle Laboratories, San Antonio, TX, USA. chittim@swbell.net

Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine

|August 23, 2005

Summary

Simulated space walks (EVA) show that lower-body movement during decompression sickness (DCS) studies shifts joint pain location but does not change overall DCS risk. Ambulatory data can help estimate risk during simulated EVA.

Keywords:

NASA Discipline Environmental Health Non-NASA Center

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Area of Science:

Space medicine
Physiology
Decompression sickness research

Background:

Extravehicular activity (EVA) in spaceflight primarily uses upper body movements due to lower body anchoring.
The adynamic model simulates this by restricting lower body activity in earthbound studies.
Decompression sickness (DCS) risk assessment is crucial for astronaut safety.

Purpose of the Study:

To compare DCS symptom incidence between ambulatory and non-ambulatory high-altitude exposures.
To determine if non-ambulatory (adynamic model) exposures provide analogous DCS risk estimates to ambulatory exposures.
To validate the use of ambulatory data for simulated EVA DCS risk assessment.

Main Methods:

Retrospective analysis of DCS symptoms from 2010 ambulatory and 330 non-ambulatory high-altitude exposures.
Comparison of overall DCS incidence, joint-pain DCS, and location-specific DCS between the two exposure types.

Main Results:

No significant difference in overall DCS or joint-pain DCS incidence between ambulatory (49%, 40%) and non-ambulatory (53%, 36%) exposures.
Lower-body joint pain DCS was significantly higher in ambulatory exposures (28%) vs. non-ambulatory (18%).
Non-ambulatory exposures had higher rates of non-joint-pain DCS (17%) and upper-body-only joint pain (18%) compared to ambulatory (9%, 11%).

Conclusions:

Lower-body, weight-bearing activity redirects joint-pain DCS from the upper to the lower body without changing total DCS incidence.
Ambulatory exposure data is a valid analogue for non-ambulatory activity in simulated EVA DCS risk studies.
Findings support the use of ambulatory data for risk assessment in simulated extravehicular activities.