Post-flight rehabilitation

Post-flight rehabilitation is of a great importance along with cosmonaut selection and training activities.

The problem of post-flight health recovery and readaptation to work is very important because the duration of flights has increased, cosmonauts fly to space more often now, and senior tourists perticipate in space flights.

In spite of using the current preventive assets and measures, spaceflight factors and, first of all long-term exposure to weightlessness, lead to essential structural and functional changes in a body of a cosmonaut. Cosmonauts note that after long-term missions they perceive ground gravitation as 2-3 g-load accompanied with the feeling of greatly increased weight of their bodies, heads, limbs. During this period physicians diagnose typical post-flight changes of cosmonauts’ health.

Different effective procedures for post-flight cosmonaut rehabilitation are always being developed and tested. It has now become possible to reduce the duration of a rehabilitation period after a long-term mission to two-three weeks. Now even on the fifth day of rehabilitation cosmonauts are able to participate in the spaceflight debriefs.