Effect of the sway bed on mental sweating of children with severe physical and intellectual disabilities

Abstract

This study examined the effectiveness of the newly developed a motorized sway bed that gently sways back and forth on mental sweating response in children with severe physical and intellectual disabilities. Ten children with severe physical and intellectual disabilities participated in this study. Sweating response (SR) on palm at the thenar eminence was measured by capacitance hygrometry. Following a period of rest, each subject was asked to lie down on a static bed for 3 min as control. Then, the subject was given sway stimuli, which was fixed at 0.64 Hz for 3 min. In the results, SR was unchanged during lying of the static bed, whereas it was decreased during sway stimulation. These results suggested that the bed swayed at 0.64 Hz might reduce psychological stress for children with severe physical and intellectual disabilities.