BPK 142 Lecture Notes - Lecture 14: High-Altitude Cerebral Edema, Edema, Vascular Resistance
28 Jun 2016
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Document Summary
Week 13: altitude and performance: physics of altitude. Medium altitude 5,000 - 10,000 feet in relation to athletics, we are concerned with this altitude range. High altitude - greater than 10,000 feet: more than 40 million people live and work between 10,000 ft (3048 meters) and 18,000 ft (5486 meters) Barometric (air) pressure decreases as altitude increases: i. e. , as the weight of the column of air above the point of measurement decreases. However, the chemical composition of the atmosphere is uniform up to 20,000 meters. Oxyhemoglobin dissociation curve - only a small change in percent saturation of hemoglobin is observed with decreasing po2 until an altitude of about 10,000 ft. This is when pao2 is about 60 mm hg. O2max have been noted at altitudes as low as 4,000 ft. Critical alveolar po2 at which an unacclimatized (unadjusted) person loses consciousness within a few minutes during acute exposure to hypoxia occurs at an altitude of 23,000 ft.
