Successful prediction of air sickness in aircrew trainees
Powell, T.J.; Beach, A.M.; Smiley, J.R.; Russell, N.C.
Aerospace Medicine 33: 1069-1080
1962
ISSN/ISBN: 0001-9402 PMID: 14488387 Document Number: 3182
The incidence of 1 or more bouts of air sickness in pilot trainees in 1960-61 taking initial flying training in the RCAF was 11%. The percentage of pilot trainees who failed to complete the full flying training course due to motion sickness was 6.7%. A simple, short rotation test with sagittal, square wave head movements of a period of 10 seconds head down and 10 seconds heads up provides subject responses varying from extreme nausea and disorientation with 1 to 3 head movements to no disorientation and no nausea in 10 complete head movements. Nausea, extreme enough to force stopping the test, is invariably accompanied by profuse sweating. Many subjects made severely nauseated on this device recover from the nausea a few minutes after the cessation of head movements and rotation but again become nauseated 1/2 to 1 hour later. This secondary nausea may last up to 12 hours. The mechanism of this secondary nausea has not been investigated. A susceptible subject, trained on the device, shows a constant pattern of disorientation, time of onset of nausea and sweating. There does not appear to be any "learning." It is suggested that this test would allow easy investigation of the action of drugs on motion sickness. The test in 151 RCAF pilot trainees, predicts air sickness in initial flying training with a significance beyond the 1% level. Use of a history of severe motion sickness approaches this level of prediction. The combination of history of severe motion sickness and the motion sickness tests is no better than the test alone for prediction of airsickness in initial flying training. When flying training failures due to motion sickness are examined against the history of motion sickness, the motion sickness test and the combined history and test, the history is of value in prediction. However, the motion sickness test and the combined history and motion sickness test have a greater value in prediction, thus making the test of considerable value in removing the flying training failures due to motion sickness before they embark on this expensive training. The psychiatric selection tests and psychiatric interview are of considerable use in detecting those individuals who will probably overcome their innate vestibular sensitivity by extreme motivation and detecting the individuals who have poor motivation which expresses itself as intractable motion sickness. Finally, the motion sickness test alone appears to have a capability of predicting flying training failures due to all causes, including motion sickness. It is of interest to note that, of 151 pilot trainees, among the 14 who failed to pass the motion sickness test, 5 have failed from motion sickness and 6 others have failed from other causes.
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