The Use of Non-pharmacological Therapy

Abstract

There are a number of non-pharmacological forms of therapy for managing motion sickness. These have had varying degrees of success over the years. The biggest problem I see in comparing the results of these various desensitising programmes is that all but mine excluded an undisclosed number of potential candidates who showed less than desirable enthusiasm for continuing to fly. Despite the fact that my cognitive-behavioural desensitisation training programme had no such pre-selection criteria, it was found to have the highest success rate. Most of the other desensitisation training programmes involved biofeedback. I do not support that approach because it relies on mental relaxation techniques to control the individual’s physiological state, whereas I believe that the subject’s mind should be both strongly focused and targeted elsewhere; that alone can protect against provocative motion. In addition it is my strongly held opinion that it is better to avoid the need to record physiological responses, for two reasons. First, it seems to conflict with the idea that motion sickness is a normal protective response. Second, military professionals and astronauts tend to be suspicious of physiological recordings lest they have an adverse effect on their medical status.