Civil Aviation Flight Fatigue Syndrome Characteristics Of Traditional Chinese Medicine Research

Objective:To study the commonly-seen Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) syndromes and its distribution characteristics of the civil aviation flight fatigue (CAFF) from the angle of syndrome elements.Methods:In this article the theory of etiology and pathogenesis of the civil aviation flight fatigue in TCM was expounded.The principles and guide lines of TCM for flight fatigue in civil aviation was also reviewed and stressed. Based on these theory, the prevention and control method had been used to relieve flight fatigue during and after irregular, night work or rapid across time zone flight in civil aviation operations by improving crew’s endurance level and sleep quality, accelerating reaction, recovering poor appetite, alleviating unhealthy emotion, etc. Literature quotation, several published papers and reviews were cited in this field. The CAFF patients were collected through the epidemiological investigation. The questionnaire investigation was adopted for the survey with the self-made civil aviation flight fatigue investigation questionnaire to calculate and analyze the distribution of syndrome elements.Results:Of the300effective samples, there were219CAFF patients, occupying73%. The civil aviation flight fatigue primary symptoms of traditional Chinese medicine were tiredness, languid, insomnia and early awakening. The order of TCM syndrome elements in frequency from high to low was fire-heat, qi deficiency, yin deficiency and phlegm turbidity. The commonly-seen syndromes of TCM were damp-heat, fire-heat, qi deficiency, insufficiency both qi and yin, damp-heat due to yin deficiency and heat due to yin deficiency. The research show that the overall fatigue of civil aviation flight personnel was to a lesser degree. Subjective fatigue tended to be slightly higher than the FSAS scale rating. The most common syndrome of CAFF was excess syndrome such as damp-heat or fire-heat. The proportion of flight attendants in the qi and yin deficiency syndrome was significantly more than the pilots. The proportion of yin deficiency syndrome in flight fatigue increased with age. In general, the civil aviation flight fatigue would be eliminated effectively by the theory of TCM. At the beginning of flight fatigue, excessive mental and physical load made the yang-qi of human body rousing overly, which led to evil fire. If this fire burning for a long time, it would result in consumption of qi and yin, and then qi deficiency and yin deficiency syndrome come up. In this pathological process, dampness and dryness are easily to carry. Fatigue scale results suggest that the fatigue symptoms of copilots are not obvious; mental fatigue was more significant than physical fatigue for pilot; flight attendants suffer from heavier fatigue, which sleep and rest can’t relieve obviously; another feature of civil aviation flight fatigue is obvious situationality, which meaning that the degree of fatigue existed obvious correlation with the working environment (such as noise, heat) and mental emotion.Conclusions:The commonly syndromes of civil aviation flight fatigue were damp-heat, fire-heat, qi deficiency, insufficiency both qi and yin, damp-heat due to yin deficiency and heat due to yin deficiency; the pathogenesis includes both deficiency and excess; and the zang-fu organs’location of CAFF was closely related with the liver, spleen and kidney.