Abstract
The increasing popularity of adventure and activity holidays means that more people are being exposed to the physiological rigors of high altitude. For some, this forms part of the physical challenge, whereas for others, it may pose an unexpected difficulty. Holiday planning, therefore, takes on a new medical dimension. Experience of working in prevention and management of altitude-related illness has illustrated that personal preparation for this testing environment is mixed; many expedition members have a good understanding and recognition through years of experience and personal interest; whereas others arrive armed with prescribed medications at the request of the commercial expedition operator with no guidance as to how to use them, and many are ignorant of the real risks of death that high altitude imposes. GPs should be prepared to help address the medical risk assessment that travel to altitude necessitates.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
