Abstract
We investigated the relationship between subjective thermal perception and physiological parameters during bathing in winter, in order to identify a good index to represent safe bathing. The thermal comfort votes and sweating sensation votes were statistically examined to correlate with blood pressure, heart rate, skin blood flow and tympanic temperature. As the result, thermal comfortable range of physiological changes were determined as blood pressure; -20〜10mmHg, heart rate <30bpm, skin blood flow; <8ml/min/100g tissue, and tympanic temperature; <1.0℃, corresponding to the thermal comfort. The physiological changes when the subjects felt "sweating" were determined as blood pressure;±10mmHg, heart rate; <20bpm, skin blood flow; <4ml/min/100g tissue, and tympanic temperature; <0.5℃, which can be a good index for "safe" bathing. Sweating sensation vote was better correlated to physiological parameters than thermal comfort sensation vote. We conclude that sweating sensation during bathing can be a good parameter for predicting to finish bathing.
