2015-08-13
354
A group of mountain-climbers in which a physician was included planned to climb a mountain peak of 6200 m. Climbing up to the level of 2900 m was successful, but at this altitude the physician, being an inexperienced climber, felt fatigue, muscle weakness, dizziness, buzzing in the ears (tinnitus). During a one-hour halt the physician collected samples of the capillary blood from himself (B1) and his mate (A1). Then the group continued the ascent. At the height of 5000 m the physician felt acute shortness of breath, severe weakness, heaviness in the body, vision disturbances, and became ataxic. For this reason he decided to stop climbing. The state of the experienced climbers was satisfactory. After the repeated withdrawal of blood samples (A2,B2) all the climbers returned to the camp at the level of 3000 m.
The results of laboratory tests of the blood samples are the following:
| A1 | A2 | B1 | B2 | |
| pH | 7.43 | 7.35 | 7.48 | 7.32 |
| pCO2 (mm Hg) | ||||
| pO2 (mm Hg) | ||||
| SB (mmol/L) | 20.5 | 18.5 | 20.0 | 18.5 |
| BE (mmol/L) | +2.5 | -3.6 | +4.5 | -5.5 |
Questions:
Are there any signs of hypoxia and acid-base disorders in the physician or his mate at the given altitudes? If you think there are, define the type of hypoxia and acid-base disorder and explain the cause of its development. Substantiate your answer by the given data.
What adaptive mechanisms, if any, were initiated in the body of the physician and the experienced climber when they were ascending? Were there any differencies in the pattern of adaptive mechanisms in the physician's and the climber's body?
