Modern medicine has been extensively investigating the impact of weightlessness on a human organism while curing various diseases including injuries. The thing is that biological and chemical processes inside a human being in the state of weightlessness do not run the way they do in the state of gravity.
The lack of gravity will help
- transfer gravitation from the upper zones of the body to the lower ones;
- relieve muscular tension;
- reduce impact on bones;
- shift the organism’s liquid media and relieve hydrostatic pressure;
- redistribute the organism’s liquid media;
- reduce the total muscular activity.
The external impact on the human body becomes reduced. And once the impact is reduced, the injury healing process is faster.
Weightlessness is closely linked to gravity, that is why it cannot be created on Earth. It is possible only to simulate the state of weightlessness.
The simplest way to simulate weightlessness today is to use water or other liquid with similar properties. This type of weightlessness simulation was named ‘pseudo weightlessness’.
In other words, we can simulate weightlessness using water for the purpose of treatment and rehabilitation.
Is it possible to replace water with a dry matter which would resemble water in some physical properties?
The most relevant matter in terms of properties is micro glass sphere. Microspheres (a simplified name of the micro glass spheres) are hollow glass beads of a very small size (10 to 200 micrometres).
With this approach, weightlessness is simulated in the following way.
The filler is placed in a special bag like a pillow case made of a special material type.
When a certain zone of a human body comes in contact with the item and then moves to change its position, the movement takes place not between the body and the item, but between the filler layers, because the internal friction of the filler is much less than the sliding friction between the part of the body and the item.
The filler behaves like liquid creating a “pseudo floating” effect, that is why the filler can easily change its shape under the ambient pressure without changing its volume.
Simulation of the pseudo weightlessness has been employed in neonatology (a part of medicine dealing with new born children) since the eighties to rehabilitate new born children with perinatal pathology, especially nervous system pathology, pneumonia, and premature neonates. The phenomenon of pseudo weightlessness may be used for treatment and rehabilitation after traumas of various nature and severity. E.g., after locomotor system injuries, central nervous system damage, burns, etc.