Effects of Mechanical Stimulation in Measurement of Thermal Pain Threshold

Abstract

The improved thermal dolorimeter developed by Fukumoto has made it easy to measure thermal pain thresholds, but mechanical stimulations may be included as the probe is pressed into the skin. In order to evaluate these effects of mechanical stimulation on the improved thermal dolorimeter, the pain threshold temperatures were measured by a probe pressed to the human skin surface with weighting loads from 0.5 to 2.5 kgf. The loads of 2.0-2.5 kgf felt invasive to 8 of the 12 subjects, i.e., they experienced pain and numbness. The threshold temperature of one of these subjects, who developed water blisters around load-added area on the skin after the experiments, exceeded 50°C. The result that no significant difference could be found among the thresholds at the loads of over 2.0 kgf suggests the load of less than 2.0 kgf should be kept to execute proper experiments. In order to investigate other effects on thermal property by compressing, the blood flow was measured when the skin was compressed and three dimensional heat transfer simulations were conducted. The results of the simulations demonstrated that the temperatures of the heat source which were measurable in practice differed approximately 1 to 2°C from the true thresholds. The velocity of heating is also increased and subjects will be given stronger feelings of heating.