The Effect of Routine and Regular Exercise Treadmill Test to the Civil Airline Pilots

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: As an airplane has been developed, the man could experienced the new environment. In these circumstances, the research of human's physical changes in the air was commended. About 80% of airplane's accidents was occurred by human factors and about 4% was related to the pilot's physical state. According to the many studies, the most common cause of the permanent grounding of the pilot is coronary artery disease(CAD). Therefore the tool of prevention and early detection for CAD was needed. PURPOSE: The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effect of routine and regular Exercise Treadmill Test(ETT) to the civil airline pilots especially 1) in decreasing the correctable risk factors of coronary artery disease 2) in reducing the medical disqualification rate of pilots. METHOD: Routine ETT has been performed to the Asiana Airlines' pilot during his regular physical check up. When the pilot showed abnormal resting ECG or abnormal ETT results, Echocardiography, 24hour Holter monitoring, Cardiac SPECT or Coronary angiography were done to rule out coronary artery disease. Review the medical records from June 1993 through December 1998. Compare the medical disqualification rate between Asiana Airlines pilot & other pilot groups. Compare the individual correctable risk factors of coronary artery disease and the numbers of risk factors between pilot and non-pilot group using SPSS 8.0 t-test. RESULTS: 1. The results showed no evidence of CAD and there was no case of CAD as a pilot's disqualifying conditions. 2. The levels of cholesterol and the numbers of risk factors of pilot had a statistically significantly lower than non-pilot group. CONCLUSIONS: Routine and regular ETT will be effective in educating the pilot to do his best to decrease the correctable risk factors of CAD.