Abstract
In order to know the current status of the spa treatment in Japanese national spa hospitals a questionnaire survey was carried out in November 1980. A total of 3, 309 in-patients of 15 hospitals were contacted by a questionnaire. Of these 3, 309 patients, 1, 106 (33.4%) were receiving spa treatment and 870 (78.7%) of them gave an answer. A detailed analysis of these answers revealed the following Of the entire patients who replied to the questionnaire, 62.7% were above 50 years of age and 16.4% were aged 70 years or above. There were 256 patients with rheumatoid arthritis and 211 with cerebrovascular accident, totalling 467 or 53.7% of the entire patients. This fact indicates that in Japan spa treatment constitutes a part of the rehabilitation program for those affected with motor disturbance.
Among various therapeutic baths, exercise bath was found to be in most frequent use, followed by Hubburd tank and bubble bath in that descending order of frequency. Peloid bath is being used in 2 hospitals and spa drinking, in only one hospital.
Spa treatment was evaluated as effective by 78.39% of patients, as ineffective by 5.9% and as uncertain by 15.9%. Patient's dissatisfaction with spa treatment related to the temperature of bath in 14.0%, to the frequency of bathing in 34.6% and to the kind of therapeutic bath in 5.5%.
A majority of patients (72.4%) started to receive spa treatment in expectation of its beneficial effect either from their own experience or on others' recommendation.
The incidence of bathing reaction among the entire patients studied was 18.4% a figure lower than corresponding values reported previously.
CMI test was performed in 284 patients of 11 hospitals. The frequency with which the test result was categorized as group 3 or 4 was higher in patients with rheumatoid arthritis than in those with cerebrovascular accident. This suggests that spa treatment is effective in the treatment of neurosis also.
Even now spa treatment is in favorite use by many patients as an adjunct to various therapeutic measures. The results of the present survey led us to firmly belief again that spa treatment is of therapeutic value.
