Flicker Illness: An Underrecognized but Preventable Complication of Helicopter Transport

Cushman, Jeremy T.; Floccare, Douglas J.

doi:10.1080/10903120601021457

Cited by 7 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…In EEG laboratories, epileptiform EEG activity is induced in photosensitive individuals by a xenon gas discharge lamp providing a series of very brief flashes, i.e., laboratory studies have not investigated the effect of very brief dark periods in an otherwise bright stimulus (such as might be provided by a wind turbine rotor). However, in the case of a seizure induced by helicopter blades reported by Cushman and Floccare (2007) the dark period of the shadow flicker was between 24 and 27 times per second. Helicopter blades are usually narrower than those on wind turbines and would provide for a shorter dark interval that might be expected to be less provocative than for a wind turbine blade.…”

Section: Wind Turbine Flicker and Photosensitive Epilepsymentioning

confidence: 98%

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Wind turbines, flicker, and photosensitive epilepsy: Characterizing the flashing that may precipitate seizures and optimizing guidelines to prevent them

Harding

Wilkins

2008

Epilepsia

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SUMMARYWind turbines are known to produce shadow flicker by interruption of sunlight by the turbine blades. Known parameters of the seizure provoking effect of flicker, i.e., contrast, frequency, markspace ratio, retinal area stimulated and percentage of visual cortex involved were applied to wind turbine features. The proportion of patients affected by viewing wind turbines expressed as distance in multiples of the hub height of the turbine showed that seizure risk does not decrease significantly until the distance exceeds 100 times the hub height.Since risk does not diminish with viewing distance, flash frequency is therefore the critical factor and should be kept to a maximum of three per second, i.e., sixty revolutions per minute for a three-bladed turbine. On wind farms the shadows cast by one turbine on another should not be viewable by the public if the cumulative flash rate exceeds three per second. Turbine blades should not be reflective.

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Section: Wind Turbine Flicker and Photosensitive Epilepsymentioning

confidence: 98%

“…The interruption of light by helicopter blades has caused seizures (Johnson, 1963; Gastaut & Tassinari, 1966; Cushman & Floccare, 2007) but to our knowledge there are no reports of seizures induced by rotating ceiling fans.…”

Section: Flicker From Rotating Bladesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Wind turbines, flicker, and photosensitive epilepsy: Characterizing the flashing that may precipitate seizures and optimizing guidelines to prevent them

Harding

Wilkins

2008

Epilepsia

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“…What we have shown here is that for stroboscopically illuminated stationary objects such a complete incapacity of cancelling retinal displacement resulting from SPEM is the norm. We believe, therefore, that MIAM might play a role in flicker sickness in which observers report nausea and feeling dizzy when, for example, in a helicopter (Cushman & Floccare, 2007) or working with intermittently flashing lights (Ulett, 1953).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stationary Objects Flashed Periodically Appear to Move During Smooth Pursuit Eye Movement

Gosselin

Faghel-Soubeyrand

2017

Perception

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We discovered that a white disc flashed twice at the same location appears to move during smooth pursuit eye tracking in the direction opposite to that of the eye movement. We called this novel phenomenon movement-induced apparent motion (MIAM). Using the method of constant stimuli, we measured the required displacement of the second appearance of the disc in the pursuit direction to null the effect during the closed-loop stage of smooth pursuit eye tracking. We observed a strong linear relationship between the points of subjective stationarity and the inter-stimuli intervals for four smooth pursuit eye movement speeds. The slopes and y-intercepts of these linear fits were well predicted by the hypothesis according to which subjects saw illusory motion from the first to the second retinal projections of the flashed disc during smooth pursuit eye movement, with no extra-retinal signal compensation.

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“…In humans, flickering light is perceived as more bright compared with steady lights (Broca-Sulzner effect) in a wide range of circumstances (Halstead, 1941;White, Belinda Collins, & Rinalducci, 1976) and prolonged exposure to high illumination flickering lights at 5-10 Hz can cause nausea, disorientation, and vertigo (Bucha effect; Bunker, 1997), as light at these frequencies interferes with brain waves associated with relaxation and sleep. Helicopter pilots can potentially suffer from the Bucha effect (at higher 24-27 Hz frequencies) as the rotor blades strobe the sunlight (Cushman & Floccare, 2007), but it is unclear whether dogs can suffer from this sort of effect. Nonetheless, the potential impact from the risk of this effect indicates that it should perhaps receive scientific attention.…”

Section: Temporal Resolution Of Light Stimulimentioning

confidence: 99%

Functional performance of the visual system in dogs and humans: A comparative perspective

Barber¹,

Mills²,

Montealegre-Z³

et al. 2020

CCBR

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Vision in dogs is generally considered poor compared with humans, and recent reports have reviewed some of the physiological principles underpinning dog vision, but a systematic comparison of the physiological and neurobiological features of vision in dogs compared with humans appears to be lacking. This means there is a risk of an anthropocentric perspective of the topic rather than an understanding grounded in a wider biological context. It is also important to appreciate that deficits in one aspect may be compensated for in other parts of the visual system, so generalizing about performance on the basis of a single feature within the visual system might be misleading. This review provides an overview of the visual perceptual abilities of dogs versus humans, grounded in the visual system's physical structures (see supplementary information) for detecting different visual features of the environment through to its initial processing prior to its cognitive evaluation. Differences and variations that exist between dogs and humans and why these might occur are considered, by reference to their natural history (ecological factors affecting their evolution) and differences in morphology (including differences in height, which will affect viewpoint and the visual information available to individuals in the same location). The implications of differences and applications for everyday handling and training of the dogs are discussed throughout.

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Flicker Illness: An Underrecognized but Preventable Complication of Helicopter Transport

Cited by 7 publications

References 24 publications

Wind turbines, flicker, and photosensitive epilepsy: Characterizing the flashing that may precipitate seizures and optimizing guidelines to prevent them

Wind turbines, flicker, and photosensitive epilepsy: Characterizing the flashing that may precipitate seizures and optimizing guidelines to prevent them

Stationary Objects Flashed Periodically Appear to Move During Smooth Pursuit Eye Movement

Functional performance of the visual system in dogs and humans: A comparative perspective

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