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Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2001 12:02:14 +1000 (EST)
From: Jens Schamberger <schambrg@ch*.us*.ed*.au*>
To: Wendell Grogan <wgrogan@dc*.ne*>
Cc: Trey <trey@ne*.co*>, techdiver@aquanaut.com
Subject: Re: brain damage and divers
Wendell, Trey,

as you both mentioned the basic problem is money to do a 
scientificly sound study ("double blind"). 
On the other hand, in all the MRI centers round europe and
the states there should be a huge amount of stored previous
scans. If we could find a scientist who is willing to look
through them and sort them out, that may give some evidence.
Again the problem is money, as somebody has to pay the poor
guy. :-)  DAN has probably done such studies, or may
be able to do further work on it. 
I can not see big companies funding it, as there is no imidiate
profit in these studies. The so called
technical diving agencies like TDI or others, even PADI and 
SSI should be interested in it (I am shure there are many others
I did not mention).
It is good to know that there are groups who are working on a
way to get this research done. 


Jens.


On Mon, 23 Apr 2001, Wendell Grogan wrote:

> Jens is right, it would be very interesting.  The scientific part of
> this wouldn't be too tough.  However, the logistics- getting the people
> together to be tested, finding "normal" non-divers, and the costs of
> doing the scans and psychometric tests would be the killer.  In order to
> make it scientifically "clean", the divers and controls (I would foresee
> two groups- recreational divers and non divers as controls) would all
> have to be tested both in terms of MRI's and psychometrics by either the
> same medical center, or all of the studies would have to interpreted by
> the same docs, none of whom could know who was in each group.
> Basic problem is money.  There are two sources of funding for this type
> of science- big companies who would hope to make a profit from it or
> some government agency that has funding for the research.
> We could always get a bunch of guys to go to their doctors and tell them
> that they're having real bad headaches and get confused easily.  The
> studies would get done, but the "double blind" and quality control
> wouldn't be there.
> Wendell
> 
> 
> Trey wrote:
> > 
> > Jens, the only one of us who has been MRI scanned and bone scanned
> > extensively is me, and I show no necrosis of any kind and no spinal lesions.
> > My brain appears like anyone else's that is my age.
> > 
> > A British television show got the scans from my doctors, and when they
> > complete the show it will have those in it for all to see.
> > 
> > JJ is working on getting somebody to study the rest of us this way and in
> > other ways, but this takes a lot of money. While I can pay for MRI and bone
> > scans at $3000 a pop, I do not expect my team to do that. If I am not
> > getting wacked, then I doubt anyone else is either, however.
> > 
> > A good guy to ask about this is Alton Hall - he handles a lot of commercial
> > diving cases where the divers were injured and turned up having PFO's or
> > other defect, and the scans were used in those instances. There is also an
> > ex Navy doc in Ft Lauderdale who runs a hyperbaric center who has a ton of
> > data on this stuff. He is the one who showed me the spinal scans that
> > compared to an MS patient on "commercial" 200 foot air divers.
> > 
> > The fact is that "recreational" excesses in diving is what is more likely to
> > cause problems: repeated air diving to 100 feet or more and excursions
> > deeper on air, deco on air, and so forth. In other words, the uninitiated
> > get the penalty.
> > 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Jens Schamberger [mailto:schambrg@ch*.us*.ed*.au*]
> > Sent: Monday, April 23, 2001 1:56 AM
> > To: techdiver@aquanaut.com
> > Subject: Re: brain damage and divers
> > 
> > Hi all,
> > 
> > have there been similar investigations like the ones which
> > started that thread on tech-divers?
> > Did maybe the WKPP (as a well organized and large group of divers)
> > take part in similar investigations?
> > With such a large group of mixed gas divers one could possible draw
> > valuable conclusions an effects diving has on the brain. Especially
> > if the results could be compared to "normal" divers and
> > non-divers. Someone could write a very nice PhD thesis about that.
> > 
> > Regards, Jens.
> > 
> > --
> > Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'.
> > Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
> > 
> > --
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> 

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