Medical Care in Microgravity

By Tina Beychok

Most of the research being done on living in outer space is focused on technological issues such as spacecraft design. However, in order to make space habitable, we also have to consider how to keep its inhabitants healthy. In this (hopefully) regular column, I'll give updates on some of the current research on how medical care has to adapt to microgravity, as well as some research on how microgravity affects the body.

Some of the best research on medical issues in microgravity is extrapolated from work in aviation medicine. One of the more interesting articles in the December 2001 issue of Aviation, Space and Environmental Medicine examined how to deal with in-flight psychiatric emergencies aboard airliners. The authors found that almost all in-flight psychiatric emergencies involved extreme anxiety and panic attacks. They concluded from this that including a rapid-onset anti-anxiety drug in on-board medical kits would be effective. Clearly, this finding might be applicable to space missions as well. Abstracts from the journal can be found at www.asma.org/Publication/abstract/Index.htm.

A poster presentation at last year's annual meeting of the American Society for Gravitational and Space Biology looked at some of more basic physiological effects of stress on the human body. Researchers at the Institute of Aerospace Medicine in Bangalore, India, looked at the effect of yoga on cardiovascular changes in simulated microgravity. They found that, over a six-month period, yogic exercises performed with the head tilted at 6 degrees for two hours, followed by a 30-minute recovery period, lowered the heart rate and increased the mean arterial blood flow. They concluded that performing yogic exercises in microgravity may have some benefit in speeding astronauts? re-acclimation to Earth gravity.

Next time, I'll look at research that actually has been done during flight missions to make outer space more habitable (and healthier) for humans.

Tina Beychok is a medical editor and is married to OASIS president Steve Bartlett. When not working as a space activist, she teaches fencing at Renaissance Fairs and greatly enjoys allowing five-year-olds to poke holes in her.