This is a listing of researchers who have made discoveries or inventions relating to the science and technology of underwater diving. Divers who have become notable due to their exploits are not listed here, unless they have published research findings or invented an important item of diving related equipment. For these, see List of underwater divers.
This section needs expansionwith: Researchers not listed here, each with at least one reliable reference.. You can help by adding to it. (October 2022) |
Decompression sickness is a medical condition caused by dissolved gases emerging from solution as bubbles inside the body tissues during decompression. DCS most commonly occurs during or soon after a decompression ascent from underwater diving, but can also result from other causes of depressurisation, such as emerging from a caisson, decompression from saturation, flying in an unpressurised aircraft at high altitude, and extravehicular activity from spacecraft. DCS and arterial gas embolism are collectively referred to as decompression illness.
Hyperbaric medicine is medical treatment in which an ambient pressure greater than sea level atmospheric pressure is a necessary component. The treatment comprises hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT), the medical use of oxygen at an ambient pressure higher than atmospheric pressure, and therapeutic recompression for decompression illness, intended to reduce the injurious effects of systemic gas bubbles by physically reducing their size and providing improved conditions for elimination of bubbles and excess dissolved gas.
Oxygen toxicity is a condition resulting from the harmful effects of breathing molecular oxygen at increased partial pressures. Severe cases can result in cell damage and death, with effects most often seen in the central nervous system, lungs, and eyes. Historically, the central nervous system condition was called the Paul Bert effect, and the pulmonary condition the Lorrain Smith effect, after the researchers who pioneered the discoveries and descriptions in the late 19th century. Oxygen toxicity is a concern for underwater divers, those on high concentrations of supplemental oxygen, and those undergoing hyperbaric oxygen therapy.
Diving medicine, also called undersea and hyperbaric medicine (UHB), is the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of conditions caused by humans entering the undersea environment. It includes the effects on the body of pressure on gases, the diagnosis and treatment of conditions caused by marine hazards and how relationships of a diver's fitness to dive affect a diver's safety. Diving medical practitioners are also expected to be competent in the examination of divers and potential divers to determine fitness to dive.
Diving disorders, or diving related medical conditions, are conditions associated with underwater diving, and include both conditions unique to underwater diving, and those that also occur during other activities. This second group further divides into conditions caused by exposure to ambient pressures significantly different from surface atmospheric pressure, and a range of conditions caused by general environment and equipment associated with diving activities.
In diving and decompression, the oxygen window is the difference between the partial pressure of oxygen (PO2) in arterial blood and the PO2 in body tissues. It is caused by metabolic consumption of oxygen.
The Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society (UHMS) is an organization based in the US which supports research on matters of hyperbaric medicine and physiology, and provides a certificate of added qualification for physicians with an unrestricted license to practice medicine and for limited licensed practitioners, at the completion of the Program for Advanced Training in Hyperbaric Medicine. They support an extensive library and are a primary source of information for diving and hyperbaric medicine physiology worldwide.
Capt. Edward Deforest Thalmann, USN (ret.) was an American hyperbaric medicine specialist who was principally responsible for developing the current United States Navy dive tables for mixed-gas diving, which are based on his eponymous Thalmann Algorithm (VVAL18). At the time of his death, Thalmann was serving as assistant medical director of the Divers Alert Network (DAN) and an assistant clinical professor in anesthesiology at Duke University's Center for Hyperbaric Medicine and Environmental Physiology.
The Thalmann Algorithm is a deterministic decompression model originally designed in 1980 to produce a decompression schedule for divers using the US Navy Mk15 rebreather. It was developed by Capt. Edward D. Thalmann, MD, USN, who did research into decompression theory at the Naval Medical Research Institute, Navy Experimental Diving Unit, State University of New York at Buffalo, and Duke University. The algorithm forms the basis for the current US Navy mixed gas and standard air dive tables. The decompression model is also referred to as the Linear–Exponential model or the Exponential–Linear model.
In physiology, isobaric counterdiffusion (ICD) is the diffusion of different gases into and out of tissues while under a constant ambient pressure, after a change of gas composition, and the physiological effects of this phenomenon. The term inert gas counterdiffusion is sometimes used as a synonym, but can also be applied to situations where the ambient pressure changes. It has relevance in mixed gas diving and anesthesiology.
Captain Albert Richard Behnke Jr. USN (ret.) was an American physician, who was principally responsible for developing the U.S. Naval Medical Research Institute. Behnke separated the symptoms of Arterial Gas Embolism (AGE) from those of decompression sickness and suggested the use of oxygen in recompression therapy.
Albert Alois Bühlmann was a Swiss physician who was principally responsible for a number of important contributions to decompression science at the Laboratory of Hyperbaric Physiology at the University Hospital in Zürich, Switzerland. His impact on diving ranged from complex commercial and military diving to the occasional recreational diver. He is held in high regard for his professional ethics and attention to his research subjects.
The decompression of a diver is the reduction in ambient pressure experienced during ascent from depth. It is also the process of elimination of dissolved inert gases from the diver's body which accumulate during ascent, largely during pauses in the ascent known as decompression stops, and after surfacing, until the gas concentrations reach equilibrium. Divers breathing gas at ambient pressure need to ascend at a rate determined by their exposure to pressure and the breathing gas in use. A diver who only breathes gas at atmospheric pressure when free-diving or snorkelling will not usually need to decompress, Divers using an atmospheric diving suit do not need to decompress as they are never exposed to high ambient pressure.
Decompression theory is the study and modelling of the transfer of the inert gas component of breathing gases from the gas in the lungs to the tissues and back during exposure to variations in ambient pressure. In the case of underwater diving and compressed air work, this mostly involves ambient pressures greater than the local surface pressure, but astronauts, high altitude mountaineers, and travellers in aircraft which are not pressurised to sea level pressure, are generally exposed to ambient pressures less than standard sea level atmospheric pressure. In all cases, the symptoms caused by decompression occur during or within a relatively short period of hours, or occasionally days, after a significant pressure reduction.
Robert William Hamilton Jr., known as Bill, was an American physiologist known for his work in hyperbaric physiology.
Neal Pollock is a Canadian academic and diver. Born in Edmonton, Canada he completed a bachelor's degree in zoology; the first three years at University of Alberta and the final year at the University of British Columbia. After completing a master's degree he then served as diving officer at University of British Columbia for almost five years. He then moved to Florida and completed a doctorate in exercise physiology/environmental physiology at Florida State University.
Richard Deimel Vann is an American academic and diver.
Brian Andrew Hills, born 19 March 1934 in Cardiff, Wales, died 13 January 2006 in Brisbane, Queensland, was a physiologist who worked on decompression theory.
The US Navy has used several decompression models from which their published decompression tables and authorized diving computer algorithms have been derived. The original C&R tables used a classic multiple independent parallel compartment model based on the work of J.S.Haldane in England in the early 20th century, using a critical ratio exponential ingassing and outgassing model. Later they were modified by O.D. Yarborough and published in 1937. A version developed by Des Granges was published in 1956. Further developments by M.W. Goodman and Robert D. Workman using a critical supersaturation approach to incorporate M-values, and expressed as an algorithm suitable for programming were published in 1965, and later again a significantly different model, the VVAL 18 exponential/linear model was developed by Edward D. Thalmann, using an exponential ingassing model and a combined exponential and linear outgassing model, which was further developed by Gerth and Doolette and published in Revision 6 of the US Navy Diving Manual as the 2008 tables.
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