Efectos de la hipoxia en montañeros expuestos a altitudes extremas

La práctica del montañismo goza en la actualidad de una gran popularidad entre nuestros deportistas. Los montañeros que se mueven en grandes altitudes se ven expuestos frecuentemente a climatologías muy adversas y vías de gran dificultad física y técnica, pero posiblemente el enemigo más temible al que se tienen que enfrentar tiene que ver con los indeseables efectos de la hipoxia. La presente investigación se centra en constatar posibles deterioros en las habilidades del pensamiento de un grupo de montañeros expuesto a altitudes extremas (por encima de los 5.500 metros), sin ayuda de oxígeno suplementario. Para ello hemos contado con la participación de montañeros de tres expediciones a los “ochomiles” Manaslu, Makalu y Gasherbrum II a los que se aplicaron pruebas de aptitudes mentales antes, durante y después de cada expedición. La singularidad de nuestro estudio reside en haber incorporado resultados de pruebas realizadas en altitudes extremas, en concreto a 5.800, 6.200 y 6.000 metros respectivamente. Los resultados ponen de manifiesto que de todas las áreas y funciones cognitivas evaluadas, parece ser que las más afectadas por los efectos de la hipoxia han sido las relacionadas con la capacidad de razonamiento abstracto, espacial y verbal. Los deterioros más evidentes se observaron en altitud, persistiendo estos a la semana de regresar. Tras seis meses dichos déficits se recuperaron por completo. Nowadays mountaineering is highly popular among our athletes. Mountaineers operating at high altitudes are often exposed to very adverse weather conditions and routes of great physical and technical difficulty, but possibly the most fearsome enemy they have to face has to do with the undesirable effects of hypoxia. This research focuses on confirming possible deterioration of the thinking skills of a group of mountaineers exposed to extreme altitudes (above 5, 500 meters) without the aid of additional oxygen. To do this, we have studied mountaineers on three expeditions to the "eightthousanders" Manaslu, Makalu and Gasherbrum II who were given mental skills tests before, during and after each expedition. The uniqueness of this study lies in having included results of tests performed at extreme altitudes, in particular at 5, 800, 6, 200 and 6, 000 meters respectively. The results show that in all the areas and cognitive functions assessed, it seems that the most affected by the effects of hypoxia were those related to abstract, spatial and verbal reasoning ability. The most obvious decline was observed at altitude and persisted one week after their return. After six months, recovery from these deficiencies was complete

Acute mountain sickness susceptibility and basic cognitive function after a brief simulated altitude of 4800 M

Twelve climbers with not been exposed in the last 12 months at high altitude were evaluated using verbal, spatial, reasoning and numerical tasks from Thurstone''s (1969) Primary Mental Abilities (PMA) test. These tasks were undertaken before and immediately after completing the Richalet et al. (1988) Normobaric Hypoxic (NH) test, which evaluates the acute mountain sickness (AMS) risk using a FiO2 of 11.5% during rest and exercise. A control group of eight climbers did not perform the NH test, so as to rule out the possible learning effect of the PMA test. Four participants (33%) from the experimental group were classified as having high-susceptibility to AMS. However, the PMA test performed after the NH test did not significantly differ from the one carried out before the NH test or from the cognitive abilities measured in the control group (p > .05)