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EntityQ3709266· pop 5· linked from 1,241 articles

Dysbarism or dysbaric disorders are medical conditions resulting from changes in ambient pressure. Various activities are associated with pressure changes. Underwater diving is a frequently cited example, but pressure changes also affect people who work in other pressurized environments (for example, caisson workers), and people who move between different altitudes. A dysbaric disorder may be acute or chronic.

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Encyclopedic overview

16 sections
Contents
  • Ambient pressure
  • Effects of pressure on the body
  • Direct effects on tissues
  • Gas filled spaces
  • Dissolved gas
  • Types of dysbarism
  • Decompression sickness (DCS)
  • Nitrogen narcosis
  • High-pressure nervous syndrome (HPNS)
  • Barotrauma
  • Arterial gas embolism (AGE)
  • Classification
  • Compression arthralgia
  • See also
  • References
  • External links

Dysbarism or dysbaric disorders are medical conditions resulting from changes in ambient pressure. Various activities are associated with pressure changes. Underwater diving is a frequently cited example, but pressure changes also affect people who work in other pressurized environments (for example, caisson workers), and people who move between different altitudes. A dysbaric disorder may be acute or chronic.

== Ambient pressure == Ambient pressure on a diver is the pressure in the water around the diver (or the air, with caisson workers etc.). It is the sum of the atmospheric pressure at the surface and hydrostatic pressure due to the depth. As a diver descends, the ambient pressure increases. At in seawater, it is twice the normal atmospheric pressure at the surface. At 40 meters (a common recommended limit for recreational diving) it is 5 times the pressure at sea level.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “dysbarism” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

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