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Man has walked on the moon, even explored mars from afar. But as ambition for future missions grows, so will the likelihood that crews could need advanced medical care in space.
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Doctors are focused on learning more about anesthesia in space because future long-haul space missions may make it impossible for seriously ailing or injured astronauts to return home quickly. University of Florida anesthesiologists studied the effects of weightlessness on anesthesia by simulating zero gravity. They asked healthy volunteers to lie on beds tilted six degrees head-down, which shifts the body's typical center of gravity. As is often the case on earth, they found that different patients required varying amounts of general anesthesia. Meanwhile, when researchers compared the effects of simulated weightlessness and normal gravity, they discovered individual patients needed few changes in dosage. Scientists caution that weightlessness may nonetheless affect health in other ways, raising questions as simple as how patients bleed in space and what happens to air bubbles in an I-V bag.
Dr. Christoph Seubert /UF anesthesiologist
"There are lots of little technical things that have to be thought through and probably tried out in order to translate what we consider normal medical care into a space-type environment."
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Although two monkeys developed serious anesthesia-related complications during a u-s and russian low-orbit mission in the ྖs, up to now few other studies have been done. Doctors say further research will help space exploration proceed in a positive and safe direction.
Dr. Christoph Seubert /UF anesthesiologist
"If we want to continue to push forward in that direction then I think it's part of our responsibility to do it with an eye for what can go wrong and what can make space as safe and sane as we can make it."
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At the University of Florida Health Science Center, I'm Mike Garrison
