Extreme Survival: Hypoxia
Hypoxia is a lack of oxygen to the body which has its most profound
effect on the oxygen hungry brain and central nervous system. The
effects of hypoxia are varied and depend on the severity of the
oxygen deprivation and its duration.
Hypoxia is induced by taking a human to altitude. This happens
because the air is thinner and less oxygen is available to the lungs.
This brings about a condition called hypoxia.
It can affect:
- Your short-term memory
- Your mental processing ability
- Your mathematical ability and
- Your hand-to-eye co-ordination
The higher the altitude the more severe the affects are, and the
faster they will occur.
Being able to perform well when suffering from hypoxia shows Superhuman
qualities.
The Test
The first part of our Extreme Endurance Test involved making our
contestants moderately hypoxic and testing their ability to tolerate
and be able to carry out mental tasks.
Contestants were placed in a hyperbaric chamber which took them
to an altitude of 18,000 feet without oxygen. We chose to take them
to this altitude to give the contestants a significant degree of
hypoxia without making them unconscious. Five minutes was allowed
for the effects of hypoxia to kick in.
At this height our contestants were given four simple tasks to
complete against the clock which tested these abilities and revealed
how their brains coped under extreme pressure:
1. Short Term Memory: our contestants had to turn over pairs
of playing cards, removing them if they matched, replacing them
on the table if they did not. Then, for unsuccessful attempts, they
had to memorise where the cards were on the table and plan their
strategy so as to remove all of the cards in the minimum number
of attempts.
2. Tangrams: our contestants were given four blocks of
wood and were asked to arrange them over the top of a drawn shape
so as to cover it accurately. Sounds easy, but it's much more difficult
in practice. Contestants were scored on how many shapes they managed
to produce within the time allocated.
3. Word Coding: our contestants had to change the letters
in a word into numbers (A=1, B=2, C=3 and so on), add or subtract
a number, and change the number back into letters creating a new
word. Contestants were scored on how many letters they managed to
transform within the time allocated.
4. Manikin Task: our contestants were presented with cards
showing a schematic picture of a man holding coloured discs in his
hands. The man may be upright or inverted and either facing them
or with his back to them. At the bottom of the picture is a coloured
block. The contestants had to decide in which of the man's hands
the disc of the colour corresponding to the block at the bottom
of the picture was held. They had to put this card into the appropriate
tray as quickly but as accurately as possible and were scored on
both accuracy and speed.
The Expert
Wing Commander Dr Henry Lupa PhD BSc MB ChB DAvMed
MRAeS - Qinetiq Centre for Human Science.
Why Is It Superhuman To Cope With Hypoxia?
People react differently when hypoxic.
Most of us, if fit, will remain conscious for 30 minutes at 16,000
feet but with an impaired mental performance. At 25,000 feet, virtually
all unacclimatised people will lose consciousness within a few minutes
and may be dead with 30 minutes.
Click here to check out the effects
of hypoxia >
Scoring
Our contestants were scored as follows:
- The memory task was scored as percentage of correct pairs
turned
- The Tangram task was scored as 20% per successful try
- The Word task was scored as percentage of letters transposed
correctly
- The Manikin Task was scored as 66.6% correct answers plus
0.875% per second saved
Our Superhuman was the contestant who performed best while moderately
hypoxic.
Click here to see the
final results >
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