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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Decompression theory | 11/17 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decompression_theory | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T10:06:49.112339+00:00 | kb-cron |
==== Perfusion limited tissues and parallel tissue models ==== The assumption that perfusion is the limiting mechanism leads to a model comprising a group of tissues with varied rates of perfusion, but supplied by blood of approximately equivalent gas concentration. It is also assumed that there is no gas transfer between tissue compartments by diffusion. This results in a parallel set of independent tissues, each with its own rate of ingassing and outgassing dependent on the rate of blood flowing through the tissue. Gas uptake for each tissue is generally modelled as an exponential function, with a fixed compartment half-time, and gas elimination may also be modelled by an exponential function, with the same or a longer half time, or as a more complex function, as in the exponential-linear elimination model. The critical ratio hypothesis predicts that the development of bubbles will occur in a tissue when the ratio of dissolved gas partial pressure to ambient pressure exceeds a particular ratio for a given tissue. The ratio may be the same for all tissue compartments or it may vary, and each compartment is allocated a specific critical supersaturation ratio, based on experimental observations. John Scott Haldane introduced the concept of half times to model the uptake and release of nitrogen into the blood. He suggested 5 tissue compartments with half times of 5, 10, 20, 40 and 75 minutes. In this early hypothesis it was predicted that if the ascent rate does not allow the inert gas partial pressure in each of the hypothetical tissues to exceed the environmental pressure by more than 2:1 bubbles will not form. Basically this meant that one could ascend from 30 m (4 bar) to 10 m (2 bar), or from 10 m (2 bar) to the surface (1 bar) when saturated, without a decompression problem. To ensure this a number of decompression stops were incorporated into the ascent schedules. The ascent rate and the fastest tissue in the model determine the time and depth of the first stop. Thereafter the slower tissues determine when it is safe to ascend further. This 2:1 ratio was found to be too conservative for fast tissues (short dives) and not conservative enough for slow tissues (long dives). The ratio also seemed to vary with depth. Haldane's approach to decompression modeling was used from 1908 to the 1960s with minor modifications, primarily changes to the number of compartments and half times used. The 1937 US Navy tables were based on research by O. D. Yarbrough and used 3 compartments: the 5- and 10-minute compartments were dropped. In the 1950s the tables were revised and the 5- and 10-minute compartments restored, and a 120-minute compartment added. In the 1960s Robert D. Workman of the U.S. Navy Experimental Diving Unit (NEDU) reviewed the basis of the model and subsequent research performed by the US Navy. Tables based on Haldane's work and subsequent refinements were still found to be inadequate for longer and deeper dives. Workman proposed that the tolerable change in pressure was better described as a critical pressure difference, and revised Haldane's model to allow each tissue compartment to tolerate a different amount of supersaturation which varies with depth. He introduced the term "M-value" to indicate the maximum amount of supersaturation each compartment could tolerate at a given depth and added three additional compartments with 160, 200 and 240-minute half times. Workman presented his findings as an equation which could be used to calculate the results for any depth and stated that a linear projection of M-values would be useful for computer programming. A large part of Albert A. Bühlmann's research was to determine the longest half time compartments for Nitrogen and Helium, and he increased the number of compartments to 16. He investigated the implications of decompression after diving at altitude and published decompression tables that could be used at a range of altitudes. Bühlmann used a method for decompression calculation similar to that proposed by Workman, which included M-values expressing a linear relationship between maximum inert gas pressure in the tissue compartments and ambient pressure, but based on absolute pressure, which made them more easily adapted for altitude diving. Bühlmann's algorithm was used to generate the standard decompression tables for a number of sports diving associations, and is used in several personal decompression computers, sometimes in a modified form. B.A. Hills and D.H. LeMessurier studied the empirical decompression practices of Okinawan pearl divers in the Torres Strait and observed that they made deeper stops but reduced the total decompression time compared with the generally used tables of the time. Their analysis strongly suggested that bubble presence limits gas elimination rates, and emphasized the importance of inherent unsaturation of tissues due to metabolic processing of oxygen. This became known as the thermodynamic model. More recently, recreational technical divers developed decompression procedures using deeper stops than required by the decompression tables in use. These led to the RGBM and VPM bubble models. A deep stop was originally an extra stop introduced by divers during ascent, at a greater depth than the deepest stop required by their computer algorithm. There are also computer algorithms that are claimed to use deep stops, but these algorithms and the practice of deep stops have not been adequately validated. A "Pyle stop" is a deep stop named after Richard Pyle, an early advocate of deep stops, at the depths halfway between the bottom and the first conventional decompression stop, and halfway between the previous Pyle stop and the deepest conventional stop, provided the conventional stop is more than 9 m shallower. A Pyle stop is about 2 minutes long. The additional ascent time required for Pyle stops is included in the dive profile before finalising the decompression schedule. Pyle found that on dives where he stopped periodically to vent the swim-bladders of his fish specimens, he felt better after the dive, and based the deep stop procedure on the depths and duration of these pauses. The hypothesis is that these stops provide an opportunity to eliminate gas while still dissolved, or at least while the bubbles are still small enough to be easily eliminated, and the result is that there will be considerably fewer or smaller venous bubbles to eliminate at the shallower stops as predicted by the thermodynamic model of Hills.