Lying Down on the Job:
Bed-Rest Study Simulates Health Conditions in Space
Steve Snitzky will spend the next three months in bed. However, he isn't ill. The 32 year old is a volunteer in a Cleveland Clinic study that simulates the micro-gravity conditions astronauts experience while in space.
Researchers have noticed that patients who are bed-ridden for prolonged periods of time experience bone loss and changes in heart function similar to those experienced by astronauts. As part of their space life research, Peter Cavanagh, Ph.D., D.Sc., Chairman of the Cleveland Clinic's Department of Biomedical Engineering, and his team have begun a bed-rest study that simulates conditions in space. Over a four-year period, the study involves placing twenty-four people in bed for three months with their bodies tilted in a slightly (6-degree) head-down position. Half of the subjects will participate in an individualized exercise regimen designed to prevent bone loss. "This study will help us to better understand why these changes occur and what we might be able to do to correct them," says Dr. Cavanagh.
"Over the course of a six- to twelve month mission you could lose 10 to 20 percent of the bone mass in your hips and lumbar spine, so we're trying to prevent that from happening. We don't want an astronaut to get to Mars and find out that their femur is too weak or their hips are in danger of fracturing," says Dr. Brian Davis, a member of the bed-rest study team.
Who volunteers for something like this?
"It's got to be someone with time on their hands and someone who wants to help the space program," says Cavanagh. "They will need to be able to look at twelve weeks of confinement as an opportunity to achieve a goal, such as writing a book or learning a language." Subjects also must be willing to adhere to the strict guidelines of the study, including specific sleeping hours, a strict diet and use of a bedpan.
Snitzky knows that he has a lot of time on his hands to read and watch television, and plans to first finish off the second season of The Dukes of Hazzard and to become certified in the use of several computer programs. He is proud to be helping NASA astronauts through his participation in the study. "That is so cool. When they go to Mars, I'll be able to say I helped them do that," says Snitzky.
Among the research team, there also is a psychiatry team working with the group. Dr. Cavanagh says that when a small group is confined together under the same circumstances for long periods of time, the range of experiences spreads the whole spectrum from emotional responses to life events; to problems communicating with mission control over long distance; to the interpersonal interactions with other crewmembers. "If you are going to spend thirty months of your life in a high stress situation, in a small space with no possibility of escape, you must have a highly compatible crew," says Cavanagh. The psychiatry team will support the bed-rest subjects as well as provide insight into mechanisms used to adapt to long-duration confinement.
For more information on this study, contact the study coordinator, Ricki Englehaupt, R.N., at 216-445-1002.
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