THE AGING DIVER : DO THE OLDER BECOME BOLDER ? LCdr

Not much is known about the medical, psychological, and performance effects of aging among US Navy divers. The possibility has been raised that several medical consequences of diving, especially decompression sickness and osteonecrosis, may be complications of the aging process.1,2 Both decompression sickness and osteonecrosis have been found to occur more frequently among older divers than among younger divers.1,2 The possibility exists however, that older divers may develop these adverse medical effects because they may make deeper, longer dives than younger divers. Such dives are known to result in a higher incidence of decompression sickness,1,3 which in turn may lead to other medical complications such as osteonecrosis.2 The only available data on this topic show a slight relationship between age and deeper, longer diving; but this relationship is not statistically significant.3