Air Travel For The Elderly – Psychological and Physiological Aspects

The fear of travel in the elderly may lead to anxiety and other medical problems.

The anxiety that the elderly feel before boarding a flight is seen in situations like delayed check-ins, reclaim of baggage and at the time of takeoff and landing. The thought of going to the airport and assembling all necessary documents adds to the stress levels. There have been cases that the shooting stress levels lead to a medical condition in which an immediate medical evacuation was required. Let’s read a little more about these two aspects of travelling in the elderly.

1. At The Airport

Imagine an elderly person trying to navigate through a sea of people, trying to reach the right departure or check in counter. He may have poor hearing and eyesight too. The stress levels are bound to rise in such a noisy place. It has been seen that most medical emergencies take place at the terminal and not inside the aircraft.

2. Problems in the Sinus and Ears

The pressure inside the cabin can cause harm to the middle ear and the ear drum. In the elderly sometimes the body fails to balance the pressure on the outside and the inside, leading to the rupture of the ear drum.

3. Motion Sickness

The change in the pressure inside the cabin combined with other psychological factors can leads to motion sickness. These conditions get out of control if the elderly has consumed alcohol in excessive amounts. In most cases this condition is pretty harmless. But in a few it may lead to other serious conditions like dehydration and an imbalance of the electrolytes. Anti histamines are known to be helpful in such cases, but no drug should be administered without consulting a doctor.

4. Risk of Infection

Since elderly are already in a frail state of health the closed cabin cab expose them to a risk of infection from fellow passengers. The most common infections that he may catch are influenza, measles and other respiratory diseases. If possible an elderly should be seated away from other unwell travelers.