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Extreme Research My work in extreme physiology, or environmental physiology, is the study of how the human body works during exposures to extremes in the environment - cold, heat, altitude, immersion, high G-forces, injury states, forensics, exercise, weightlessness, high and low air pressures, how to survive and perform better in these environments, and other work which funding sources have gone out of their way to meticulously ignore. My scientific interest began as a child as I sat in the snow in winter, watching my grandfather, the oldest member of the "Icebergs" walk barefoot over the ice to go ocean swimming every day. |
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Alaska photo
of Dr. Bookspan by CDR Jim Caruso, MC, US Navy Undersea Medical Officer
Click or mouse-over image for photo by Robert Troia
Fixing Injury and Pain Research
My career as research physiologist took me to military, university, and top training centers from undersea to mountaintop to jet cockpit. I was given the toughest assignments to find why common training and rehabilitation methods don't work, and what does. Strong brave men got hazardous duty pay just to have a day with me. Methods I developed are the ones that are learned in school by doctors, trainers, physical therapists, Navy divers, chamber operators, combat swimmers, police and military, and top athletes. Doctors, and instructors of yoga, PIlates, Alexander technique and others have all come to me as patients to find out why they have back and other pain and what to do about it. I was the first person to develop fitness programs aboard cruise ships, and was told it would "never catch on."
Dr. Bookspan's Academy of Functional Exercise Medicine:
- Not all exercise is medicine. Not all medicine is healthy. We change that.
- See exciting new ways to think and do fitness. Come be a part of making a better Earth through AFEM - Academy of Functional Exercise Medicine.
Dr. Bookspan's Fitness Fixer free health compendium - nearly 800 articles on changing fitness and medicine to be healthy:
- PREVENTING NEED FOR SURGERY - surgery.
- AGING - Don't limit the person to limit the pain. You can do more, not less. Click aging.
- MILITARY FITNESS - military fitness.
- MARTIAL ARTS training and medicine - martial arts.
- LORDOSIS and HYPERLORDOSIS - lordosis.
- DISC INJURY AND RECOVERY - disc.
- SPRAINS and ANKLE HEALTH - sprains.
- FUNCTIONAL BALANCE TRAINING - balance.
- FIXING HEALTH of MIND and SPIRIT - better mental abilities, healthier spirit.
- SOME OF THE FIRST MOTION CAPTURE STUDIES - Rocky Movie Computer Fight Simulation. My small contribution.
- PARCOURS - I taught Parcours/ Free running in the 1980s - Parcours - Old Fun Is New Exercise.
- READER SUCCESS - read what my patients, students, and readers did that worked, or didn't, and why - Hall of Fame 2009 and Hall of Fame 2007 and 2008.
Free Summaries of Fixing Pain, changing fitness and medicine to be healthy:
- Click my Office for a list of summary articles that grew from patient handouts for NECK pain, BACK, KNEE, DISC, healthier STRETCHING, and more - Office Page.
- A few summaries of my research studies on core muscle function, and why crunches and flexion-based abdominal training isn't useful as commonly thought - on the Ab syllabus
Diving and Extreme Environment Research
Since I was a child, I wanted to study science under the sea. I grew up to study decompression physiology, diving maneuvers and countermeasures for SEAL teams and combat swimmers, oxygen toxicity and exercise during submersion. I lived and worked in laboratories underwater, competed in cold water middle distance swims, taught SCUBA, studied the Ama-San diving women of Japan, and researched barometric effects on human performance. I have studied combat swimmers and done extreme swims with them for fun. For military survival protocols, I blasted pilots in ejection towers and spun them in centrifuges and other scientific thing-a-ma-bobs. I put men in vats of freezing water to see how we can keep pilots alive after bail-outs and how to get covert swimmers to their objective, and, I found out, an entire separate topic to get them back again.
Free Articles from my Fitness Fixer health compendium - Almost 800 articles:
- SCUBA diving science and medicine. Click for my short and quick articles on scuba on Fitness Fixer.
- HYPERBARIC science and medicine - hyperbarics.
- SWIMMING science and medicine - swimming.
- PULMONARY EDEMA/OEDEMA science and medicine -pulmonary edema.
- COLD science and medicine - cold.
- HEAT science and medicine - heat.
- AEROSPACE science and medicine - aerospace.
- ALTITUDE science and medicine - altitude.
- g-FORCE and ACCELERATION science - g-forces.
FORENSIC science and medicine - forensics. I am Science Officer for the Vidocq Society (I'm "The Spock of Vidocq"). A bit about this international cold case think-tank, only allowing 82 full members - www.vidocq.org. I was told than when Vidocq has a case involving severe environment (aviation/cold, etc..) I am called in and they say, "She's the Man!" Books about us - see The Murder Room and The Girl With the Crooked Nose on my BOOKS page.
Books:
For all divers - Diving Physiology in Plain English. For all levels of diver, dive instructor, and others interested in scuba medicine and science. See it on the BOOKS page of this web site. Physicians who want a handy review and summary of all hyperbaric medicine, and to prepare for board exams in hyperbarics, can try my book Diving and Hyperbaric Medicine Review For Physicians. Chamber techs and nurses saw the physicians book and asked for their own separate edition to prepare for certification and know their stuff - Hyperbaric Medical Review For Board Certification Exams, CHT/CHRN. See all - on the BOOKS page of this web site.
Public education:
I am working on a public education program to educate about diving and hyperbarics. Watch this space. Qualified practitioners are invited to apply to contribute in their specialty.
I am private and spent a career keeping personal information out of print. Finally, here are a few moments to share:
Dr. Bookspan Examines Movie Star Christopher Reeve
with Doppler ultrasound to detect
decompression bubbles after dives for his television
show about scuba diving.Experts in several areas of diving joined the show to explain the underwater world as he dived and explored it.
I was his personal medical expert (this show was filmed before his horse riding accident). I had been in a paralyzing accident and my crutches, scars, and body metal bothered them. We did all possible to hide them.
Invited to Dinner by Dr. Edward Teller
at a scientific conference.
Regardless of politics, his enormous intellect and wit are undisputed. He told me the inside scoop on why the public record of his interactions with Oppenheimer was untrue.
At the conference, he first scowled at me and asked in his gravely thick accent, "Vat do yoo know about rrradiation?" My heart sank. My chance to talk to this great physicist and he asks something out of my area. I stammered, "Nothing... sir..."
We talked rapid-fire about medical isotopes, his family, radiation, injuries (he lost a leg in a train accident as a student in Hungary) and his passion and knowledge of hyperbaric medicine. He quizzed me non-stop on all topics until he furrowed his eyebrows and roared, "You LIED to me - you said you know nothing ... but you know - EVVERRRYthing."
Equations With The Great Dr. Ed Lanphier
in his home in Wisconsin.
I had the privilege to live with him and his wife (Mom Lanphier) to work on several studies. Dr. Lanphier was a renowned pioneer in diving physiology and medicine, initiating many top US Navy diving medicine studies.
Heavy metal bracing was evident even under thick sweaters, from my paralysis (accident, later recovered). Often I worked lying on the floor - the bracing did not bend for chairs. It did not bother Lanphier, even when others were not hiring.
No matter what topic I asked him about, he had been involved in it in some way, even the first liquid breathing studies. It led me to always say, "All roads lead to Lanphier."
Photo by Mom Karron Lanphier
Worked Over 9 Years with Dr. Chris Lambertsen
at UPenn's Institute for Environmental Medicine (IFEM). I hand-reduced the data for his famous Predictive Studies Series. He believed direct capture of physiologic parameters superior to automating, and I tracked every data point straight from strip chart recordings, intimately learning study results for each subject. Also, Dr. Steve Thom's pioneering carbon monoxide studies.
Dr. Lambertsen developed the United States Navy's rebreathers in the 1940s for underwater warfare, including the first rebreather, the Lambertsen Amphibious Respiratory Unit (LARU), and was a pioneer in undersea medicine.
Photo courtesy of Dr. Lambertsen
Breath Hold Diving With The Japanese Ama Divers
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there not... Two points in the adventure of the diver:
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(click the penguin to see
who Jolie is)
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