If you had unlimited funds to study something....

[GLOC]

"If you had unlimited funds to study something related to physiology and technical diving--what would you study?"

I have been contacted by Gene Hobbs from the Rubicon Foundation asking me to PM a link to people I knew on DIRx about a poll/survey which is taking place on the Deco Stop site. Rather than send the link out, I thought I would open this up to the whole DIRx community (I am limited to how many PM's I can send) and you can make the decision as to whether you want to visit TDS and take part in the poll.

The link is The Deco Stop and the subjects are:

Decompression Theory - How about depths 200fsw and deeper? Dive data collection and analysis, what tools can we use that researchers have now?

Diver Health - How related are fitness level and off-gassing? What is happening to us as we start aging (arthritis, short term memory)? How will my artificial devices hold up and affect my dives (ex. artificial joints, screws, pins, PFO closures)? Is there a way to avoid Disembarkment Syndrome? How will taking XYZ drug affect my dives?

High Pressure Nervous Syndrome - How & Why does it happen? Can it be avoided?

Gas Narcosis - Is there a better or different way to manage this?

Oxygen Toxicity (CNS & Pulmonary) - How can we better manage long exposures to high pO2s?

Post-Mortem Accident Analysis - We can't ALL be dying of heart attacks. Let's find out what really happened so the rest of us can learn from it. How should this data be displayed for us to make up our own minds? How can we pay for better Accident Analysis on every dive fatality?

Thermal Stress - How does cold water REALLY affect decompression? Hot water? Basic Sciences - Is complement something that really is worth looking at? How about Nitric Oxide? Are there other markers for injury that should be looked at more?

Recompression Therapy - What new adjuctive therapies need to be tried (or just transitioned from animal models to human)? In water recompression?

Regards

[lizardland]

One of the big difficulties is getting the physiological stuff through ethics commitees, the tutor on my Masters just chuckled at the idea of acute O2 tox research and applying for approval.

On the other hand, my big problem was trying to come up with an idea to cover up the fact I was trying to take the dept's prototype RB (which they were developing commercially for an equipment manufacturer) on a cave diving trip :D

[Ahmed Adly, Marlin Inn DC]

I think decompression theory, for now, is of extreme importance.
But decompression thoery goes hand in hand with other subjects such as: diver health, thermal stress and recompression therapy.
I guess we could call them chicken and egg subjects.

What I personally would do is dive. Gas me up (literally) and send me in, time after time and see what happens, in a controlled fashion of course.
Actually this is one thing I would really like to do. Ginnie pig! (never could spell it right) Helium in Egypt is real cheap, so lets go.

I am very proud that the scientific community is interested in our knowledge. I would love to support in any way I could.

Ahmed

[floater]

Quote: (Originally Posted by GLOC)

"If you had unlimited funds to study something related to physiology and technical diving--what would you study?"

I have been contacted by Gene Hobbs from the Rubicon Foundation asking me to PM a link to people I knew on DIRx about a poll/survey which is taking place on the Deco Stop site. Rather than send the link out, I thought I would open this up to the whole DIRx community (I am limited to how many PM's I can send) and you can make the decision as to whether you want to visit TDS and take part in the poll.

The link is The Deco Stop and the subjects are:

Decompression Theory - How about depths 200fsw and deeper? Dive data collection and analysis, what tools can we use that researchers have now?

How about a study like the DAN study on various ascents and the subsequent bubbling: https://www.daneurope.org/eng/uhm%20...ep%20stops.pdf

I'd like to see that in rec depths for other ascent profiles and with more people and more dives. I'd also like to see a similar study for tech dives using various gases and for profiles generated by RGBM, VPM-B and GUE-deco (whatever it is now), especially for profiles where those algorithms yield markedly different ascent profiles.

[Janos]

If I had unlimited money then I'd like to try and recreate the experiment I saw in one of my Optics textbooks (Hecht) where they took holographic images of women's chest as they jumped up and down. I'm sure there was some reason for it but I can't remember what it was. I was somewhat distracted by the holographs. Ha! Don't think you'd get funding for that these days...

But seriously, I'd be very interested in the long term DCI implications of deep recreational dives. Narcosis, ok we don't know how the mechanism works but we know how to deal with it and it's not a problem to manage. Similarly, all though I debate the O2 window endlessly it only makes a few minutes difference to your profile either way.

However, I think that the phenomena of recreationally diving to deeper than 60m+ is a new one. Well it's certainly a lot more widespread.

Us recreational divers don't do it in the same way that the commies did in the eighties and I don't think theres much evidence around. Or none that I've seen. Will we see a rash (ha!) of DCI or osteonecrosis cases in 10 or 20 years time because we stopped too deep / didn't stop deep enough / stopped too long / didn't stop long enough / used too much O2 / used too little O2*

* delete as appropriate.

However, because of the nature of what you're investigating, the stufy would be hard to do.

Janos

[Roel]

Environmentals impact on deco and off-gassing during the stops!

Cold, age, health, fat, hydration, nutrition, etc etc

[TobyFish]

Quote: (Originally Posted by lizardland)

One of the big difficulties is getting the physiological stuff through ethics commitees, the tutor on my Masters just chuckled at the idea of acute O2 tox research and applying for approval.

You should try doing research for the military. Ethics problems seem minimal.

from CSA - Canada's Aerospace Medicine Pioneers

Quote:

"Bryan and another officer, Wilson (Bill) Leach, devised a series of tests in a decompression chamber that involved taking test subjects from the pressure at 8000 feet to the much lower pressure at 40,000 feet in a matter of seconds. This is known as explosive decompression—the kind of thing that can happen if a plane’s hatches or windows blow open or if the sealed cabin is breached in some other way. The tests were risky. "When decompression occurred, there was a terrific rush of gas from the lungs," said Bryan. "If you happened to have your throat closed, if you were swallowing at that point, your lungs could burst. We always made a point of making sure the mouth was open at the time we pulled the plug."

Similar experiments haev been done to precipitate bubble formation in the heart... now there's a PFO test!

while I was tracking down that article I found this.. worth a read

Explosive Decompression and Vacuum Exposure

ho hum.

btw - I'd study narcosis.

[GLOC]

Quote:

"Bryan and another officer, Wilson (Bill) Leach, devised a series of tests in a decompression chamber that involved taking test subjects from the pressure at 8000 feet to the much lower pressure at 40,000 feet in a matter of seconds. This is known as explosive decompression—the kind of thing that can happen if a plane’s hatches or windows blow open or if the sealed cabin is breached in some other way. The tests were risky. "When decompression occurred, there was a terrific rush of gas from the lungs," said Bryan. "If you happened to have your throat closed, if you were swallowing at that point, your lungs could burst. We always made a point of making sure the mouth was open at the time we pulled the plug."

Been there, done that but from surface to 35,000ft during aircrew training, any gasses that are in your body do expand, these include the by-products of a hot curry and real ale. The smell is quite offensive!

Also done was the hypoxic tests at 25,000ft, seeing how long you last without O2 before you can't do anything yourself

[jluttichau]

Quote: (Originally Posted by GLOC)

"If you had unlimited funds to study something related to physiology and technical diving--what would you study?"

If i has unlimited funds and unlimited time i would develop and document a universally applicable procedual framework for diving, we think that DIR is better then anything else but have no documentation to prove it, maybe we're wrong.

Cheers
Jonas

[nskdrs]

Following a statement Mr. Wienke recently made during Stockholm conference:

More data on TMX/Heliox-diving from real dives ( not chamber ) to refine decoalgorithms,
also more data past 120m

cheers,
hoffi