Mental Health Challenges Faced by Medical Professionals in Manned Space Missions

摘要

View Video Presentation: https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2021-4010.vid Conventionally construed to be a heavy responsibility, maintaining the health of professionals in charge of space missions pre-dominantly tends to overlook the challenges faced by the medical professionals that may be present on-board for servicing the crew. Whether it is inflight or the International Space Station or in Outer Space, the scarcity of resources to combat mental and physiological concerns is an exhausting constraint. Official launches to the Moon and Mars shall soon require serious attention and assistance from the medical profession in order to aid the team of scientific experts leading them. Psychiatric triggers can have several potential stressors ranging from external physical hazards like space debris, outer space radiation, gravitational shifts, vehicular mal-function and constricted living space which can lead to isolation, loss of spatial capacity and depression. Symptoms such as hallucinations and hyperventilation coupled with poor bodily co-ordination are also highly common. [1] More specific difficulties such as tele-medicine inventory, general physical and psychological concerns, along with serious trauma and preparedness for emergency protocols can thus make a physician vulnerable and exposed to a disturbed environment. As a large number of incidences involving complex medical procedures in orbital missions or on the space station have not been observed yet, one cannot rule out the entire possibility of the same. Considering the current facility on the ISS made available to take care of such complications is still comparatively primitive, it calls the urgent need for upgradation in order to make the work of medical officers less strenuous. Furthermore, the conscious burden of making informed and ethical decisions during a tenure of prolonged stress while keeping in mind mandated legal standards of behavior can severely affect the sound mental state of any medicinal practitioner. This can occur due to the high-profile mission and the pressure of expected performance. Doctors, as portrayed by Dr McCoy in fiction, often act as moral compasses or “function as an ethical point of narrative stability”. [2] It is also important to practice encouragement of pre and post counselling sessions that may relieve all doctors and psychiatrists that also may work as flight surgeons. This paper shall focus more on the adverse risks and effects present in the domain of remote healthcare and behavioral health targeted with respect to the medical support system situated in space. It also aims to determine and formulate strategies to combat induced pressure upon them by way of innovation in the medico-technological sphere. For example, Empatica Inc.- an MIT spin-off involves software and algorithms for understanding mental health and human behavior of astronauts with the help of wearable sensors which can add clarity to diagnosis and treatment.[3] Tele-robotics or autonomous surgical robots is another interesting initiative that can be used for medical emergencies in case the on-site practitioner is unwell. [4] In conclusion, space medicine is an evolving domain that helps to address the problems in relation to astronauts, but it must also include a specific and separate arrangement to address the different grievances faced by medical professionals that are responsible for monitoring the health of the entire team.