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Protect yourself from altitude sickness
Anker Challnge
Challenge.
01
Many dangers in mountain sports are relating to a lack of oxygen in higher levels. It's harder for our bodies to supply the organism with enough oxygen.
This effect appears from a height of 2500m above sea level and can lead to dizziness and coordination disorders which are a common reason of
accidents or falls.
In addition, edemas can appear in lungs and brain. This so-called
altitude sickness leads to death without the right treatment.
With this project i would like to answer these questions:
How can the climber be helped to avoid symptoms of altitude sickness?
How can he recognize symptoms and treat them in an emergency in order to survive?
Wie schon erwähnt können die Höhenkrankheit oder ihre Symptomatik tödliche Wirkung haben. Schwindel, Kopfschmerz und Übelkeit führen zu schwerwiegenden Bergstürzen, die Höhenkrankheit führt häufig zum Tod.
Körperliche Fitness allein schützt nicht. Es kommt auf andere Faktoren an. Kommt es zu einem Notfall, ist eine Behandlung unter schweren Bedingungen oder ein Abtransport auch nicht immer direkt einsetzbar.
Hinzu kommt die immer steigende Beliebtheit von Hochtouren. Man spricht vom sogenannten Höhentourismus, welcher in den letzten Jahren stark zugenommen hat.
Die Grafik rechts zeigt den Anstieg des Höhentourismus in Nepal. Dieser hat sich von 2008 bis 2017 fast verdoppelt.
Problem.
02
Eine Studie zeigt, dass zirka 25%, also jeder vierte Bergsteiger auf Hochtouren Gesundheitsprobleme erleidet und 3% derer tödlich verunglücken.
"Der Bergsport entwickelt sich mehr und mehr zum Breitensport. Dies lässt sich vor allem an der Urbanisierung typsicher Outdoor- Sportarten beziehungsweiße dem aufkommen neuer Trainingsplattformen beobachten."
Stephan Hagenbusch, Black Diamond.
Jährlich verunglücken eine Vielzahl von Bergsteigern an Symptomen- oder an der Höhenkrankheit selbst. Die Schwierigkeit zur Vermeidung der Krankheit liegt darin, dass sehr viele unterschiedliche Faktoren Einfluss darauf nehmen, ob der Körper den Sauerstoffmangel in großen Höhen ertragen kann. Kommt es zu einem Unglück, gibt es nur so gut wie keine Möglichkeit zur Behandlung, außer den Weg zurück in tiefere Lagen, welcher nicht immer direkt oder ohne Hilfe möglich ist.
Eine häufige Unfallursache sind zudem auch Schwindel- und Trittunsicherheit durch die Symptome des Sauerstoffmangels.
Zudem kommt die weiter steigende Begeisterung von Hobby Bergsteigern, sich in großen Höhen aufzuhalten, ohne sich den Gefahren bewusst zu sein.
Was ist an der Höhenluft so gefährlich?
Befinden wir uns auf Meereshöhe, herrscht normaler Luftdruck und der Sauerstoffpartialdruck in der Atemluft ist hoch genug, dass unser Körper ohne Probleme durch die Lunge mit Sauerstoff versorgt werden kann.
Umso höher wir kommen, desto 'dünner' wird die Luft. Das bedeutet, dass mit dem sinkenden Luftdruck auch der Sauerstoffpartialdruck der Atemluft sinkt. Es sind also weniger Sauerstoffteilchen in der gleichen Menge Luft vorhanden, welche unseren Organismus versorgen können. Unser Körper kann diese Differenz allerdings nur in gewissem Maße ausgleichen.
Dieser Sauerstoffmangel in Körper und Hirn birgt
gewisse Risiken und zwingt zu Vorkehrungen:
Schwindel &
Unsicherheit
Durch den geringen Sauerstoffgehalt im Blut treten häufig Schwindel und Unsicherheiten auf, welche zu schweren Stürzen und Unfällen mit Todesfolge führen können.
Gruppendynamik
Die Gruppendynamik auf Bergtouren ist ein wichtiger Faktor. Häufig werden Symptome und Vitalwerte verschwiegen, um die Gruppe nicht auszubremsen oder Schwäche zu zeigen. In den meisten Fällen führt dies zu schweren Erkrankungen.
Akklimatisation
Symptome und Krankheiten können durch eine gute Akklimatisation im Vorfeld und bei frühzeitigem erkennen der Symptome leben retten und den Körper in gewissem Maße an die Belastung gewöhnen.
Lungen-
& Hirnödem
Kommt trotzdem eine Höhenkrankheit vor, entsteht durch Druckunterschiede im Körper ein Lungen- und/ oder Hirnödem. Die Atmung wird weiter erschwert. Der Patient kann in einen komatösen Zustand versetzt werden und in Lebensgefahr schweben.
Research.
03
In the big research i got the medical knowledge i need, checked the Market and Trends of Mountain Sports with a desktop research and a visit at the alpine fair Innsbruck. Additional i did expert Interviews, analyzed treatment options and the technological opportunities.
"Rapidly moving to lower elevations is always the key therapy and cannot be replaced by any other therapy."
The Pressure (Gamow) Bag.
The one and only option to treat a patient on the mountain is this Pressure bag.
The patient has to be placed in the bag which gets inflated by air through an air pump.
With this higher air pressure, the amount of oxygen is increasing. The patient can be stabilized.
Principle of the pressure treatment.
It's an easy and non technological principle, the pressure bag use.
The outer air gets compressed in it and with this the amount of oxygen reaches the higher level as on lower altitudes.
The patient kann absorb more oxygen through his lung, gets stabilized and can be treated until he can rescued or get down the mountain by himself.
Sounds easy but unfortunately there are some real pain points:
The patient can't help himself.
It is not possible to treat yourself alone or permanent without an other person.
Additionally the pressure has to be checked permanent.
It's hard to get in.
It isn't that easy to get the patient in the flexible bag when it is not inflated. Mostly the patient is dizzy or even unconscious which makes it way more harder within the cold weather.
Heavy weight & high cost.
The biggest pain points are the cost of 2500€+ and the weight of 8Kg. This causes that the Pressure bag is rarely used and mostly located in a few Mountain camps for emergency.
The patient isn't transportable.
When the patient is in treatment, he isn't transportable. So he has to get back outside in the altitude air to get rescued or to hike down himself.
Market & Trends.
To get an actual overview & feeling for the outdoor and alpine market & trends, i did a wide desktop research, expert interviews and decided to add a visit at the alpine fair in Innsbruck.
With this i got a felling for the Equipment and digital tools the mountaineers use.
The altitude sickness and its symptoms can cause to death, as i mentioned. Physical fitness can't protect you against this danger.
It's important to have deep experience in acclimatization of your body, in order to know your condition at high altitudes.
With the increasing popularity of high altitude tours and mountaineering, the number of inexperienced people on the mountains is rising.
This fact, known as high-altitude tourism gets to a bad level in Nepal, for example. The amount of altitude tourists in Nepal has doubled since 2008.
Problem.
02
And this causes even traffic jams on the Mount Everest,
where people are dying.
A study shows that 25% of the climbers will get bad health problems on a mountain tour and 3% will die.
"Mountain sports are becoming more and more popular. This can be observed above all in the urbanization of typical outdoor sports and the emergence of new training platforms.
Stephan Hagenbusch (translated), Black Diamond.
The difficulty to avoid the altitude sickness is given from the many variables that may have influence on the body.
If the body can't handle the lack of oxygen anymore and the disease begins, the only way to treat the symptoms is the way back into lower levels with a higher oxygen pressure in the air. Above this, there is a way to simulate this, with a higher air pressure than surrounding to maximize the amount of oxygen the patient can absorb with the lung.
Why is the high altitude air so dangerous?
On sea level we are breathing air with a normal pressure and amount of oxygen, called oxygen partial pressure.
With this our body don't have any problem with a lack of oxygen to supply the organism.
The higher we get above the sea level the air gets "thinner".
This describes the decreasing air pressure and with this, the decreasing amount of oxygen particles in the air which can supply our organism.
Our body has to acclimatize to balance this difference.
A variety of variables can have a measurable influence on the risks:
Acclimatization
The body needs it's time to get used to the lower oxygen level. So it's measurable from the elevation per time how long your body has to rest in this height to acclimatize.
Blood oxygen
saturation & vital data
A measurable sign of the bodies condition and level of acclimatisation is the blood oxygen saturation and ither vital data. It's measuable via puls oxemitry and is calles SaO2 level.
Weather &
air pressure
For sure the weather, air pressure and localization of the mountaineer is important and measurable.
Especially in the case of emergency it's important so collect these data.
Group dynamics
The dynamic of a group is one of the biggest variable and reason for a serious progression of altitude sickness.
The patient mostly doesn't like to stop the group because of symptoms and ignores them. So the symptoms lead to a brain or lung edema which can cause death.
So the group should be connected and reflective about every symptom.
Ideate.
04
In der Recherche Phase wurde schnell klar, dass es nicht von Nutzen ist, die Notfallbehandlung zu verbessern. Viel mehr muss, bei steigender Beliebtheit von Bergtouren, die Prävention im Vordergrund stehen.
Die Idee entwickelte sich zu einem Produktsystem, welches Präventiv hilft, Bergtouren sicher zu absolvieren und den Nutzer das richtige Verhalten lehrt. Zusätzlich dazu sollte es aber auch ein Produkt geben, welches im Notfall helfen kann. Denn der Patient muss stabilisiert werden, um ihn sicher vom Berg nach Hause zu bringen.
Aus dieser Kombination kam ein Handheld Gerät, passende Sensorik und eine Beatmungseinheit, welche sich zur Überdruckbehandlung eignet, in Frage.
How might we...?
Wie kann eine Gefahr
vermieden werden?
Prävention
Akklimatisation
+
Vitalwerte
Durch die Überwachung der Akklimatisationsparameter (Höhenexposition pro Zeit/ Schrittgeschwindigkeit) und der Überwachung von Vitalwerten (Sauerstoffsättigung im Blut, Puls, Atemgeschwindigkeit) lassen sich wichtige Rückschlüsse auf das Risiko der Erkrankung geben. So kann der Bergsteiger das Risiko minimieren.
How might we...?
Wie kann dem Patient im
Notfall geholfen werden?
Behandlung
Überdruck-
Behandlung
Kommt es trotzdem zu einem Notfall, kann der Patient mit der Überdruckbehandlung stabilisiert werden. Die Vitalwerte geben Aufschluss über den Gesundheitszustand und können helfen darüber zu entscheiden, ob ein Abtransport oder Abstieg möglich ist.
Prävention
Behandlung
Hilfe in Form eines Handheld
Überdruck in Mund- Nasen Maske (Cpap)
Um einen Überdruck zu erzeugen und dem Patienten eine höhere Konzentration an Sauerstoff zu ermöglichen, reicht es aus, Mund und Nase mit dem Druck zu versorgen. Damit bleibt der Patient mobil und kann sich bewegen oder transportiert werden, ohne, dass die Behandlung unterbrochen werden muss.
Durch den neuartigen PPG Sensor können Sauerstoffsättigung und Herzfrequenz bestimmt werden. Andere Daten können Gps- und Beschleunigungssensoren liefern.
05
Design.
Die Prävention soll durch ein Handheld mit passender Sensorik abdeckt sein und der Notfall durch eine kompakte Beatmungspumpe. Zusätzlich entschied ich mich dazu, die Stromversorgung in der Produktfamilie mit einzubeziehen, da dies einen wichtigen Faktor darstellte.
05
Design.
The design process began in the classic way with sketching and mock ups. I tried different styles of a compact respiratory pump.
With the first mockups from foam and in cad it gets clearer to combine the pump with the mask to one single unit.
With the further 3 dimensional design process, form function and UX were iterated and optimized again.
The mock up's were translated in cad models and functional prototypes with rapid prototyping for the further detailing.
Last but not least, the products were build as 1:1 Design models. Here i could recheck the latest details and optimize them for a perfect fitment and ergonomy.
Ideate.
04
It was obvious from the research that i have to go deeper than only designing a medical tool which can be used in case of emergency.
Because of the increasing popularity for mountain sports it gets important to give advice for the prevention of altitude sickness, too.
How might we...?
How might we prevent
the altitude sickness?
Prevention
Akklimatisation
+
Vital data
With vital data, like oxygen saturation, heartbeat and temperature, as well as parameters from acclimatization (exposition per time), we can guide the user in higher altitude and minimize the risks for suffering from altitude sickness.
How might we...?
How might we can therapy
in case of emergency?
Therapy
Pressure
treatment
In case of emergency, the user should have a tool to help himself or others. It should be a device which is lightweight, easy to use and can be worn within the user gets rescued or climbs down himself.
Prevention
Therapy
Handheld with different
sensors and easy inteface.
Mask in combination with a respiratory pump
To produce the higher air pressure in the lung, it's enough to cover mouth and nose with a mask. This fact was checked from an experiment of the University of Innsbruck and the well known Cpap technology.
There was one question mark left: How to get the data of oxygen saturation and others.
Within the research I explored the PPG Sensor which is perfect for this project. It's cheap, tiny, lightweight and can be worn in the ear. So the key elements are clear...lets design this thing.
06
Produkt.
The product family includes the actual respiratory unit, the handheld device and an ear plug for communication and for the placement of the PPG sensor.
For the handling and charging of the handheld I designed an additional mount for it which can be placed at the backpack strap.
Die Onox - Handheld helps the mountaineer to check his vital data in context to his acclimatization. If symptoms appear or the safety rests aren't done, the user and his team members can be informed and react.
The data which are needed are delivered by the PPG sensor in the ear, a GPS module and gyro sensors in the device itself.
The side buttons of the device can be used to change the information screens. On the top you can see the red emergency slider. With this an emergency call can be set. The communication with the mountain rescue team can begin and important informations like location and vital data of the patient can be transmitted to them.
The team can plan the rescue operation and give first aid instructions to the patient and his team members.
Der Onox - Respirator is a tiny and lightweight respiratory unit which should be carried by every mountaineer in future.
Are symptoms or the altitude sickness itself appearing, the user only has to open the unit with one button and the therapy can be begin.
The device opens up, the user can grasp the mask and bring it to the face. In the next step the head strap can be added.
With this system the patient keeps transportable or can move itself without interrupting the treatment. The device can be hung around the neck.
As mentioned, the mask and the respiratory pump are build as one crash and water resistent unit.
It's an all in one solution which safes up to 7kg weight to older solutions.
The air pressure is produced from an easy, lightweight and cheap technology. A tiny compressor wheel is powered by a brushless motor and keeps a static air column under pressure.
This produces the pressure we need in the mask.
energized ist the motor by two Lifepo battery cells. This technology is tested and used in mobile C-Pap respiratory units, too.
Its easy to produce, easy to check, got a long lifetime and safes lots of money and weight.
Your question mark about the energy you will need is rounded off with the Onox Backup. It's the last part of the product family and keeps you energized on longer expeditions.
The Back Up is worn in the backpack and carries the Onox respiratory Pump and charges all of your batteries.
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