Abstract
Changes of systolic and diastolic blood pressure, heart rate, and pressure-rate product (PRP) during bathing (washing body with soap and shampooing, showering and bathing in hot water) were studied on a 70 year-old male patient in chronic phase with extensive acute myocardial infarction (AMI), comparing with the data of 28 patients with AMI in our previous paper.
During having the bath, the PRP increased more significantly than the data in the previous paper.
This significant increase may be attributed to the severity of the disease and the old age, in addition to the exercise load, the isometric load, the Valsalva maneuver and the increased output.
Bathing in hot water, the systolic blood pressure decreased extremely. It is considered that this phenomenon was due to the hemodynamical instability by the weak vasomotor reflex and the low cardiac function. The change soft blood pressure and PRP during bathing were not so significant when the temperature of water was increased gradually from 38°C to 44°C. On the other hand, the heart rate was increased when the temperature of the water was higher than 41°C.
We must always take care of patients not to increase cardiac burden during bathing especially for the old people with AMI such as the present patient.
