Asthenia - Does it exist in space?

Objective: First popularized as neurasthenia in the late 1800s by American George Beard, asthenia has been viewed by Russian psychologists and flight Surgeons as a major problem that affects cosmonauts participating in long-d uration space missions. However, there is some controversy about whether th is syndrome exists in space; this controversy is attributable in part to th e fact that it is not recognized in the current American psychiatric diagno stic system. Methods: To address this issue empirically, we retrospectively examined the data from our 4 1/2-year, NASA-funded study of crew member an d mission control interactions during the Shuttle/Mir space program. Three of the authors identified eight items of stage 1 asthenia from one of our m easures, the Profile of Mood States (POMS). Scores on these items from 13 R ussian and American crew members were compared with scores derived from the opinions of six Russian space experts. Results: Crew members' scores in sp ace were significantly lower than the experts' scores on seven of the eight items, and they generally were in the "not at all" to "a little" range of the item scales. There were no differences in mean scores before and after launch or across the four quarters of the missions. There were no differenc es in response between Russian and American crew members. Conclusions: We c ould not demonstrate the presence of asthenia in space as operationally def ined using the POMS. However, the POMS addresses only emotional and not phy siological aspects of the syndrome, and the subject responses in our study generally were skewed toward the positive end of the scales. Further resear ch on this syndrome needs to be done and should include physiological measu res and measures that are specific to asthenia.