Posted by Karl E. Huggins on November 01, 2000 at 09:37:48:
In Reply to: Re: D.A.N. Numbers (raw data) posted by Ken Kurtis on October 31, 2000 at 11:37:00:
A couple years ago DAN did a survey to estimate the incidence of DCI in the recreational diving population.
The results were presented at the UHMS Scientific Meeting that year.
The abstract for "Estimated DCI Incidence in a Select Group of Recreational Divers" can be found at:
http://www.diversalertnetwork.org/medical/articles/article.asp?articleid=25
They found that only about 1/2 of the people who had signs & symptoms of DCI actually sought treatment.
They concluded:
"Conclusion: Total DCI incidence, assuming untreated cases were DCI, is close to
Bove's (3.41)for sport divers but above that for military divers (2.65) (Undersea
Hyper Med 1998;25:175-178). If the survey population of DAN members is assumed to
be representative of the larger population then an average of 1006 cases of
DCI/year, reported to DAN from 1992-1997, at 3.38 DCI/104 dives would represent
2.98 million recreational dives/year. Whether untreated cases represent
underreporting or false positives is unknown."