This book discusses the technical changes that take place at high altitude, and reasons in a down-to-earth way how these situations can be sensibly handled. The authors are climbing doctors with first-hand experience of altitude medicine.
This pre-eminent work has developed over six editions in response to man's attempts to climb higher and higher unaided, and to spend more time at altitude for both work and recreation. Building on this established reputation, the new and highly experienced authors provide a fully revised and updated text that will help doctors continue to improve the health and safety of all people who visit, live or work in the cold, thin air of high mountains. The sixth edition remains invaluable for any doctor accompanying an expedition or advising patients on a visit to altitude, those specialising in illness and accidents in high places, and for physicians and physiologists who study our dependence on oxygen and the adaptation of the body to altitude.
A comprehensive update to this preeminent and accessible text, this fifth edition of a bestseller was developed as a response to man's attempts to climb unaided to higher altitudes and to spend more time in these conditions for both work and recreation. It describes the ever-expanding challenges that doctors face in dealing with the changes in huma
HE history of high-altitude physiology and medicine is such a rich and T colorful topic that it is perhaps surprising that no one has undertaken a comprehensive account before. There are so many interesting ramifications, from the early balloonists to the various high-altitude expeditions, culminating in the great saga of climbing Mt. Everest without supplementary oxygen. Underpinning this variety is the basic biological challenge of hypoxia and the ways organisms adapt to it, a subject that is of key importance in medicine and many other life sciences, encountered as it is by organisms throughout the animal kingdom. I hope that this book will be of interest to a wide range of people, from biologists and physiologists to pulmonologists and others who manage patients with hypoxemia. The topic should also appeal to those who love the mountains including trekkers, skiers, climbers, and mountaineers. The book begins with a short introductory chapter to set the scene for the non-scientist. It then follows a general chronological sequence beginning with the Greeks and ending with contemporary events. In some places, however some compromises have been made to group together areas of related interest. For example, in Chapter 4 the controversy about oxygen secretion is traced from the 1870s to the 1930s and includes the Anglo-American Pikes Peak Ex pedition of 1911 and the International High-Altitude Expedition to Cerro de Pasco, Peru during 1921-1922. It makes sense to consider these events together.
Over the last decade the science and medicine of high altitude and hypoxia adaptation has seen great advances. High Altitude: Human Adaptation to Hypoxia addresses the challenges in dealing with the changes in human physiology and the particular medical conditions that arise from exposure to high altitude. In-depth and comprehensive chapters cover both the basic science and the clinical consequences of exposure to high altitude. Genetic, cellular, organ and whole body system responses to high altitudes are covered and chapters discuss these effects on a wide range of diseases. Expert authors provide insight into the care of patients with pre-existing medical conditions that fail in some cases to adapt as well as offer insights into how high altitude research can help critically ill patients. High Altitude: Human Adaptation to Hypoxia is an important new volume that offers a window into greater understanding and more successful treatment of hypoxic human diseases.
Based on Dr. Auerbach's renowned Wilderness Medicine text, Field Guide to Wilderness Medicine, 5th Edition, is your portable, authoritative guide to the full range of medical and emergency situations that occur in non-traditional settings. Useful for experienced physicians as well as advanced practice providers, this unique medical guide covers an indispensable range of topics in a well-illustrated, highly condensed format – in print or on any mobile device – for quick access anytime, anywhere. - An easy-access presentation ensures rapid retrieval and comprehension of wilderness medical information, with "Signs and Symptoms" and "Treatment" sections, bulleted lists, and quick-reference text boxes in every chapter. - All chapters are thoroughly up to date, including new information on travel medicine, medications, immunizations, and field treatment of common conditions. - Step-by-step explanations from wilderness medicine experts cover the clinical presentation and treatment of a full range of wilderness emergencies and show you how to improvise with available materials. - Comprehensive coverage includes dive medicine and water-related emergencies, mountain medicine and wilderness survival, global humanitarian relief and disaster medicine, high-altitude medicine, pain management, and much more. - Line drawings and color plates help you quickly an accurately identify skin manifestations, plants, poisonous mushrooms, snakes, insects, and more. - Useful appendices address everything from environment-specific situations to lists of essential supplies, medicines, and many additional topics of care.
High altitude physiology and medicine has again become important. The excep tional achievements of mountaineers who have climbed nearly all peaks over 8,000 m without breathing equipment raise the question of maximal adaptation ca pacity of man to low oxygen pressures. More importantly, the increase in tourism in the Andes and the Himalayas brings over 10,000 people to sites at altitudes above 4,000 and 5,000 m each year. At such heights several kinds of high alti tude diseases are likely to occur, and these complications require detailed medical investigations. Medical authorities need to inform both mountaineers and tourists as to how great a physical burden can be taken in the mountain environment without risk to health. Physicians need to know what kind of prophylaxis is to be employed at high altitudes to prevent the development of diseases and what therapeutic measures should be used once high altitude diseases have occurred. Moreover, the physical condition of the indigenous population living at higher altitudes such as the Andes and the Himalayas, who are exposed continuously to the stress of high altitude, requires our attention. We have become familiar with symptoms characteristic of chronic high-altitude disease: under special conditions this popu lation has a tendency to develop pulmonary hypertension, which is associated with pulmonary edema, pulmonary congestion, and right heart failure.
* Cutting-edge information on how to prevent, diagnose, and treat altitude illness and hypoxia in everyday life * Interweaves fascinating research discoveries with dramatic first-person accounts * Authored by a celebrated mountaineer and physician who pioneered research in the field From the time of his historic expedition to Nanda Devi in the high Himalaya, Charles Houston, M.D., was fascinated by the effects of altitude on the human body. Why do people get sick in the mountains? What are the symptoms of hypoxia -- lack of sufficient oxygen -- that also occurs in everyday life, sometimes chronically due to disease? How can we decrease the incidence of illness and death? This edition incorporates current research on the effects of altitude on humans, and Houston (now deceased) joined forces with an educator and a medical writer in a text made even more accessible for the average reader while retaining the depth of material of particular use to the medical community. This edition of this seminal text added chapters on vision and the eye at altitude, chronic and subacute altitude illness, and the limits to work at altitude (with implications for athletic training). It presents information on genetics and gender differences and more on flight and space travel, on understanding and treating sea-level hypoxic illnesses, and on who can (or should not) go to high altitude, and much more. With an expanded glossary of terms.