Effects of airsickness in male and female student pilots: adaptation rates and 4-year outcomes.

INTRODUCTION: Airsickness (AS) often affects aircrew members, especially at the beginning of their flight careers. In this study the AS incidence in 376 Italian Air Force student pilots (336 men and 40 women) was investigated during their initial flight activity. METHODS: The study was separated into two parts. In part 1, the AS incidence was analyzed in the whole sample to determine the overall characteristics of AS and the hypothetical differences between men and women during the first flight certification (Basic). Part 2 analyzed a subpopulation of 102 individuals (86 men, 16 women) over 4 subsequent years throughout the first 4 flight certifications (for a total of about 60 flight hours). In all cases, AS was evaluated according to the number of flight missions affected by vomiting episodes. RESULTS: The overall AS incidence during Basic was 34.8%, without significant gender differences. However, within AS individuals, a significantly higher percentage of women were slow adaptors (12.5% of the whole female sample vs. 3.3% in men). AS overall affected the likelihood of reaching Basic certification, but this was not significantly related to the number of AS episodes. The 1-yr interval between two subsequent flight certifications caused a loss of adaptation to the flight environment in most cases. DISCUSSION: The absolute incidence of AS in our study resulted within the expected range, without significant differences between men and women. In a minor number of individuals (11 out of 336 men and 5 out of 40 women) a slow capability of adaptation to AS was observed. Such a finding was statistically more prevalent in women. In contrast to previous literature data, when prolonged interruptions from flight activity are planned, the retention of adaptation in our study did not play a significant role in avoiding future episodes of AS.

The effect of cinnarizine and cocculus indicus on simulator sickness.

Pensacola Simulator Sickness Questionnaire (SSQ) is a valuable method to analyse symptoms evoked by exposure to a flight simulator environment that can also be adopted to evaluate the effectiveness of preventive tools, aiming at reducing simulator sickness (SS). In this study we analysed SSQ data in subjects undergoing a standard ground based spatial disorientation training inside a flight simulator, in order to evaluate the SS prevention obtained with two different pharmacological tools. Twelve males volunteers participated to an experimental design based on a double-blind, balanced administration of either 30 mg cinnarizine (CIN), or Cocculus Indicus 6CH (COC), or placebo (PLC) before one trial of about one hour spent inside a spatial disorientation trainer. All subjects underwent the three different conditions (CIN, COC, PLC) during 3 non-consecutive days separated by at least 2 weeks. During each experimental day, all subjects filled in SSQ. In addition, both postural instability (with the use of a static stabilometric platform), and sleepiness symptoms were evaluated. All the tests were performed before and after the simulated flight, at different times, in one-and-half-hour intervals. Results indicated a strong increase of sickness after flight simulation that linearly decreased, showing pre-simulator scores after 1.30 hours. In contrast to both PLC and COC, CIN showed significant side effects immediately following flight simulation, with no benefit at the simultaneous SSQ scores. Globally, no highly significant differences between COC and PLC were observed, although a minor degree of postural instability could be detected after COC administration. As far as the present exposure to a simulator environment is concerned, none of the pharmacological tools administered in this study resulted effective in reducing SS symptoms as detected by the SSQ. Moreover, CIN significantly increased sleepiness and postural instability in most subjects.