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Pharmacological Treatment of Motion Sickness

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Motion Sickness

Abstract

Practically everything has been tried at one time or another to treat motion sickness. There are a number of medications that are quite effective, although most have some unwanted side effects and some adversely affect performance. Scopolamine and promethazine are still considered to be the most effective anti-motion sickness medications. Perhaps the most disturbing feature of the anti-motion sickness drug story is that nothing new and effective has appeared in the last forty years or so. Recently, drugs that have effective anti-emetic properties in certain clinical settings have not been found to be effective in a motion environment. If you are treating passengers, make your choice of medication according to circumstances such as duration and severity of exposure and individual idiosyncrasies. When dealing with operators of potentially hazardous equipment or those performing certain skilled tasks, the choice is more difficult and it may be better to avoid drugs all together.

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  1. National Biodynamics Laboratory, College of Engineering, University of New Orleans, New Orleans, LA, USA

    Thomas G. Dobie

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Correspondence to Thomas G. Dobie .

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Dobie, T.G. (2019). Pharmacological Treatment of Motion Sickness. In: Motion Sickness. Springer Series on Naval Architecture, Marine Engineering, Shipbuilding and Shipping, vol 6. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97493-4_10

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97493-4_10

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