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Decompression sickness (DCS; also called divers' disease, the bends, aerobullosis, and caisson disease) is a medical condition caused by dissolved gases emerging from solution as bubbles inside the body tissues during decompression.
Decompression sickness is usually avoidable by following the requirements of decompression tables or algorithms regarding ascent rates and stop times for the specific dive profile, but these do not guarantee safety, and in some cases, unpredictably, there will be decompression sickness.
The principal conditions are decompression illness (which covers decompression sickness and arterial gas embolism), nitrogen narcosis, high pressure nervous syndrome, oxygen toxicity, and pulmonary barotrauma (burst lung). Although some of these may occur in other settings, they are of particular concern during diving activities.
Decompression sickness is caused by inert gas bubble formation in supersaturated tissues, barotraumas of decompression are usually caused by rapid decompression where gas spaces are not able to equalise pressure with the surroundings, and ebullism occurs only in cases of decompression to very low ambient pressures.
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Risk management for decompression sickness involves following decompression schedules of known and acceptable risk, providing mitigation in the event of a hit (diving term indicating symptomatic decompression sickness), and reducing risk to an acceptable level by following recommended practice and avoiding deprecated practice to the extent ...
He was appointed superintendent of the RNPL in 1968 and soon thereafter was awarded his PhD for research into prevention of decompression sickness. Experimental work in the use of helium based breathing gases resulted in a record breaking chamber dive in 1970 by associated researchers to 1,535 feet (468 m), followed in 1980 by a simulated depth ...