Acute care

Abstract

After more than 50 years of human spaceflight operations, the US and Russian spaceflight programs now have sufficient experience to identify the most common medical problems that occur in space. This experience base allows the development of means to diagnose and treat medical problems anticipated to occur during flight-that is, to provide spaceflight crews with acute care. Acute care, in this sense, refers to the treatment of the common minor medical problems that can occur during crewed spaceflight missions. Acute care also refers to the assessment and stabilization of the more serious illnesses and injuries that can affect missions or cause significant crewmember morbidity. Experience with human space flight has taught us that serious illnesses can occur during missions. The crew medical officer (CMO) who is assessing the seriously ill or injured crewmember faces several challenges. The CMO not only must correctly diagnose the problem so as to prevent either a premature end to the mission or an increase in crewmember morbidity from delaying return but also must work with limited resources in an extreme environment, the effects of which on humans are not completely understood. This chapter summarizes the experience gained in diagnosing and treating acute medical problems in space and provides recommendations for treating expected problems in future space flights.