The charming setting of the Rectorate Palace of Lecce, from 1 to 3 October, hosted the 35th edition of the National Conference of the’Italian Association of Aviation and Space Medicine, with the participation of over a hundred healthcare professionals, university lecturers, medical officers, pilots, experts and researchers, for a discussion on the latest updates from the world of aviation and space healthcare.
The social opening of the event was held in the great hall of the Cloister with the masterclass del Professor David Gradwell del King’s College of London on “Aerospace Medicine: caring for astronauts, pilots and half the world”, preceded by the first working session on “Microgravity and Space Medicine”, chaired by Head of the Health Service of the Italian Air Force Logistics Command, Inspector General Fabio Morgagni.
The second study session, in English, was dedicated to “Operational Aviation Medicine”, whereas the third session addressed the topic of “Aviation medicine”with the neuroscientific applications in air traffic management, the operational impact of biological evolution in Air Traffic Controllers, and other problematic nodes such as the effects of stress on glucose metabolism and its influence on fitness for work. The fourth and fifth sessions were dedicated to aviation clinical medicine and extremely interesting case studies for clinical practice and the medico-legal implications of fitness for flight crew. The sixth session, dedicated to “Aerospace psychology and Human Factors”, explored, among other topics, the relationship between psychology and air rescue in the management of non-motor disability, and mindfulness training through the virtual reality, tested specifically for the mission Artemis 4554, which saw the Italian Air Force Medical Service engaged in renewing the studies of Angelo Mosso, the father of Italian Aeronautical and Space Medicine, on the peaks of Monte Rosa. Finally, the seventh session dealt with the latest updates regarding Biocontainment e Aeronautical Physiology.
«Aerospace medicine has the objective of studying all those physiological phenomena related to flight – declared the Major General Pietro Perelli, Chief of the Italian Air Force Health Corps and President of AIMAS – among these hypoxia, spatial disorientation, the wearing and destabilising effects of acceleration, but also the objective of understanding the opposite problem, namely that of the absence of gravity. It is a comprehensive science, aimed at safeguarding the health of pilots, flight crews and astronauts, maintaining a high level of physical and mental efficiency during the mission, and optimally restoring, as regards astronauts, psycho-physiological functions upon return. This knowledge is constantly evolving and must increasingly become the heritage of aerospace physician who during their training path will have to touch upon all study lines from selection to the maintenance of the fitness profile of crews, to training and education. Air Force Medical Officers also actively collaborate in scientific research in this field, as a testament to the importance of access to aerospace resources for our country, and of the “dual” impact of experimentation on military operational aspects and on civil scientific and clinical research».
«People still think of space as the future, but instead it is the present – says Colonel Paola Verde, Secretary General of AIMAS. – In its nearly 73 years of activity, AIMAS has never stopped conducting applied research and sharing results and reflections useful to the entire community with the whole scientific and civil society. Aerospace medicine, as research into Alzheimer's disease has shown, on the neuroscience, on the incidence of cataracts or heart disease, is a testing ground for new discoveries and consequent treatment opportunities for everyone. In particular, this year, we also wanted to focus on the health of air traffic controllers, and the behaviour of passengers during flight, starting from psychological factors».
Italian Association of Aerospace Medicine it was founded in 1952, from the ashes of the post-war period, to carry on the legacy of the glorious experimental aeronautical health tradition of the 1930s at the Direzione Superiore Studi ed Esperienze in Guidonia. A history in the service of scientific research and the community that is intertwined with that of the aeronautical and aerospace world, which has always been inextricably linked to that of the Armed Force's doctors, starting with its founder Tommaso Lomonaco who in Venice, in the Salone delle Colonne of Cà Giustiniani, after receiving the consent of the Head of the Aeronautical Health Service, Gennaro Pera, gathered a group of aviation doctors to give life to the then A.I.M.A., which took on the ’Space“ designation from 1963.
The Head of the Air Force Medical Service he is the adviser to the Chief of the Air Staff for matters concerning the Italian Air Force Health Service, with particular regard to personnel training and employment profiles, and also provides advice and resources to the Health Service for the organisation of technical and scientific events concerning healthcare.
The Italian Air Force Health Service, which marks the centenary of its foundation this year, has the task of ensuring healthcare support in the fields of forensic and occupational medicine, prevention, assistance and rehabilitation, aeromedical safety, and the procurement of health supplies, for all Air Force personnel and other entitled persons (personnel from other armed forces or other institutions), both at home and abroad. It is also technically responsible for the training and employment of Air Force medical personnel. Its mission it is the assistance provided to Armed Forces personnel to ensure they are always ready, in terms of psychophysical fitness, to fulfil the duties for which the Italian Air Force and the country call upon them.
