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A Model to Simulate Clinically Relevant Hypoxia in Humans
Published on: December 22, 2016
Repetitive breath-hold diving causes serious brain injury
Hideki Tamaki1, Kiyotaka Kohshi, Shuichi Sajima
1Division of Emergency Medicine, Tamaki Hospital, Hagi, Japan.
Abstract:
We report on a Japanese male professional breath-hold diver (Ama) who developed neurological disorders during repetitive dives to 22 meters of sea water. Each diving duration and surface interval were 40-80 seconds and 20-30 seconds, respectively. He suffered from sensory numbness of the right cheek, hand and foot, and double vision after more than two hours of consecutive dives. Magnetic resonance images of his brain showed multiple cerebral infarcts, and one of the lesions was situated in the brainstem. There is a possibility that repetitive deep breath-hold dives with short surface intervals can induce fatal accidents for divers.
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