3 minute read
SPACE MEDICINE
SPACE MEDICINE, EARTH MEDICINE: SAME, SAME...BUT DIFFERENT
When I first became an aquanaut, my friend, knowing my love of water and space, sent me a graphic of an aquanaut and an astronaut, floating in water and space, respectively, with the caption, “same, same...but different.” I loved it at the time, and think back to it frequently when about challenges in space medicine and terrestrial medicine.
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The hazards associated with the spaceflight environment are myriad, but generally fall into one of 5 categories: microgravity, distance from Earth, radiation, isolation and confinement, and hostile environments, which covers everything from altered day-night cycles to exposure to lunar dust. Microgravity alone affects nearly every single bodily system, resulting in decreased muscle mass, loss of bone density, and fluid shifts, causing congestion and even increased pressure around the brain and eyes in some astronauts. Knowing this, it makes perfect sense that “space medicine” as a field of study exists. If we are knowingly sending humans to live and work in a high-risk environment, we want to prepare them at every step of the mission timeline, starting right at selection, and continuing pre-, post- and during flight.
Identifying and mitigating human health challenges in space is but one part of the puzzle. The other challenge of human spaceflight has to do with constraints - space is not just risky, it is also expensive. It costs thousands of dollars to transport a single kilogram of material to space, and we have limited supplies and resources. In addition, astronauts have a lot of skills to master and a heavy operational schedule to manage. A workday, on the International Space Station, for example, is scheduled down to 5-minute intervals. Knowing all of this, anything we pack with us, even if it is to be “medical-grade,” has to be low-mass, low-volume, low-cost, low-power, easy to use, and have a long shelf-life.
So how do we set ourselves up to not just survive but thrive in space? By utilizing emerging technologies that can enable us to flourish in austere environments, while adhering to the constraints of the spaceflight environment, and testing these technologies and protocols in similar, or analogous environments to Earth, we are as prepared as possible when it comes to actual spaceflight. We call this type of testing ‘analog environment testing’.
In one example, I partnered with Luxsonic Technologies, a Canadian company specializing in immersive technologies for medical education and healthcare access, to test a medical virtual reality radiology suite. I have since joined the company as VP of Immersive Medicine, and we are developing a VR-based medical education model for the Canadian Space Agency, with a view towards helping astronauts maintain their skills on long-duration missions to the Moon, Mars and beyond. You certainly don’t want to be the first patient your crew medical officer attempts an IV start on if the last time they practiced this skill was 6 months prior on Earth!
As you may have gleaned, such lightweight portable technologies aren’t restricted to astronauts on their way to Mars! Earth has no shortage of remote, resource-limited locales in need of technologies that can facilitate access to medical education and care, from rural villages in India to remote Arctic populations in Canada, and there are a lot of opportunities to catalyze both access and healthcare delivery to such environments.
In sum, medical advances are beneficial and needed on Earth as much as they are in space, and access as well as delivery of healthcare to both of those environments is feasible.
Dr Shawna Pandya
