Pulmonary Embolism and Air Travel

Pulmonary Embolism and Air Travel

My son and daughter-in-law had made plans for France. They landed at the airport and their daughter started to experience chest pains. The emergency unit at the airport checked her and told them something about it probably being pulmonary embolism. They took her to the hospital and my daughter-in-law called me to ask me about pulmonary embolism. I checked the search engines hoping to get directed to authentic information on the net about this. I came across three websites that seemed authentic and derived information from there and compared them.

The first website that I visited gave me a brief overview of pulmonary embolism due to long flights. It informed me that blood clot forms in the vein and travels to the lungs. This website was more oriented at the seasonal effects of long flights and pulmonary embolism. Its states that "for pulmonary embolisms, hospitalizations dropped below the average in the summer and climbed as much as 26% above average in the winter, the report indicates" (Anonymous). Although the author seemed to be anonymous, the website claims to have taken the information from the British Medical Journal dated September 15, 2001. However additional information presented there which they say to be from The New England Journal of Medicine, gives a brief overview that people traveling long distances have more chances of having a blood clot formed. They talk about how being immobile on the plane can increase the risk of blot clot formation and it traveling to the lungs. This information presented by them related to my granddaughter's situation and I realized that my granddaughter must have remained seated in position for the entire length of the flight. The webpage also points out that people traveling distances more than 3,100 miles were at a higher risk than those traveling shorter distances. The risk increased with increasing distances traveled. An important pointer that I did get from this website was that one is advised to avoid alcohol, wear loose clothing and drink fluids on the flight. It furthers asks people to avoid sitting with their legs crossed and there should be minor physical activity.

The second website was a news website which had an article about pulmonary embolism and air travel. It related the case of Barbara who had passed away due to pulmonary embolism. The blood clot in her vein broke off and traveled to the pulmonary artery and blocked it. This news article was quite informative as well and stated how common pulmonary embolism was and how much it is under-diagnosed. Although the initial information did not relate to the situation that I was facing, the article caught my attention when I came to learn that people who are not overweight and do not smoke are also at risk. This article went on to give a figure of upto 100,000 deaths each year due to pulmonary embolism. Reading on I came to the part where the article discusses the situation I was facing. It stated that in addition to air travel, even extended car rides increase the risk factor of pulmonary embolism and people. It refers to Dr. Geoffrey Westrich, who works as an orthopedic surgeon at Manhattan's Hospital for Special Surgery, to have recommended "taking breaks during long car rides, walking up and down the aisles during a flight, and moving one's ankles up and down 10 times every hour during a prolonged period of sitting. He also recommends drinking a lot of water and avoiding alcohol during a flight" (Roni Rabin).

The third website I visited stressed on the need for knowing more about pulmonary embolism and the environment in the airplane. It goes on to describe how economy class seats are designed for minimal movements and thus increase the risk of pulmonary embolism. It stresses it to be a duty of the physicians to inform the patients in whom they think are likely to develop this condition. It states how airlines knowing the risk of pulmonary embolism had completely avoided "providing the proper seats, equipment and warnings to the traveling public who are totally within their care and control while on board the aircraft" (Louis S. Franecke, Esq.).

Out of the three websites, the last one which I visited was a long read and the information in it did not relate to my situation. It was focused more upon the fact that air travel increases the risk of pulmonary embolism but the airlines did nothing to solve the issue. Although it did deal with air travel and pulmonary embolism, the information in it was not well presented and it addressed to other issues not related to me. I spent about 1 hour reading through the three websites. The second website, being the news article did address to my issue but to check whether it had anything to do with air travel and pulmonary embolism I had to half of the article before I came to the concerned information. I would not mind recommending this article to someone but I prefer recommending the first website. The reason being that it had highlighted keywords and to derive information from there was really easy and took the shortest time. Moreover whatever information I could derive from the second and third websites combined, I found all of that in the first website. Hence my recommendation to anyone would be the first website. From my study I derived that air travel increases the risk of pulmonary embolism and one needs to intake fluids during flight. Moreover there should be some form of physical activity in the plane. I further conclude that increasing the distance of air travel increases the risk of pulmonary embolism and symptoms like chest pain can be due to pulmonary embolism. I wanted to know how authentic my conclusion was and thus wished to check a journal entry regarding this issue.