The Buttocks Have It

An anonymous reader writes "From this ZDNET article: Future hijackers may find that their buttocks betray them, if UK defense firm Qinetiq has its way. The company has developed a smart chair stashed with a thicket of seat sensors, according to New Scientist magazine this week. The same seats could also be used to warn cabin staff of illness among the passengers, potentially alleviating the risk of deep vein thrombosis or DVT."

Comments

Re:DVT? Just increase the fucking legroom.

[niko9]

Suspect? It's one of the easily misdiagnosed conditions, even by physicians. But if they actually do suspect you have a DVT,by then it's too late. The thrombus has already lodged. So you suffer with some shortness of breath and chest pain if it's a small clot, or they have to figure out where to stash your corpse if it's a reall big clot. ;)

Seriously...

[mark-t]

This has a lot of potential to result in whackloads of false positives. 1 in 20 people have some form and some degree of ADD, a chemical imbalance in the brain that naturally causes fidgetiness and the inability to remain too still for prolonged periods.

That has a potential to misidentify waaaay too many people, and the system would end up getting ignored.

Re:DVT? Just increase the fucking legroom.

[The Tyro]

I echo your sentiment about the legroom... though that in itself might not prevent DVT. In fact, I could see it increasing your risk (more comfortable seat = you stay in it longer = more venous stasis). The way help avoid a DVT is to unbuckle your seatbelt, and move about the cabin... You have to walk a bit, maybe do some knee bends (pretend you're looking for something under your seat if you're concerned about other passengers looking at you funny). I would even consider taking an asprin before a long trip. That single asprin (avg dose 325mg) will "thin" your blood by inhibiting your platelets... irreversibly, I might add. Don't worry... you'll replace those platelets with normal ones over time, assuming you take no more asprin, but it will take you a week or so. Ever wonder why surgeons ask you to stop taking asprin for two weeks before any elective surgery? That's why.

DVTs come from a couple of factors; venous stasis (blood pooling in your veins) is only one. The others are injury (getting kicked in the leg), and any sort of hypercoagulable state... ie. your blood clots more readily than normal. This last category is large, and includes pregnancy, birth control pills, smoking, cancer, genetic problems, etc, etc.

I took one trip that lasted almost 30 hours (20 hours+ of pure flying time)... inbetween sleeping and eating, I got up and walked the length of the airplane any number of times. Not only does it let you get the kinks out and stretch, but it also helps prevent DVTs, and their lethal sequela, the feared pulmonary embolus (PE).

A big PE (so-called "saddle embolus") will turn you out like a light. A large enough clot blocks your blood flow to the lungs, effectively dropping your cardiac output to zero. That, as you might imagine, is rapidly fatal... so rapidly fatal in fact that I've had people have huge PE's right in front of me and die, right there... nothing we could do for them (diagnosis made on autopsy). PEs are one of the major contributors in sudden death cases, though that's gotten a bit better with proper diagnosis and treatment.

While PEs are a problem, they used to be a bigger problem. Years ago, if you broke a hip, you were on bedrest for 6-8 weeks until it healed (these days, whenever possible, aggressive surgical repair and early ambulation are the rule). In retrospect, the bed rest was a bad idea; those folks were dying left and right of pulmonary emboli... thank god for medical progress.