Abstract
In order to determine the safety of a warm bath and its optima temperature, warm baths were administered to 54 convalescent patients who had histories of myocardial infarction. The patients washed their bodies in their usual ways, and the effects of the warm bath were compared between bath temperatures of 40°C and 42°C.
PRP increased immediately after entry into the bath and during washing activities, and ST deviations appeared on electrocardiograms at these times as well. Many instances of extrasystole occurred immediately upon entering the bath, and PEP/ET, a measure of stroke volume, decreased during bathing. These changes were greater when bath temperature was at 42°C than at 40°C. When the clinical course and results of patients were studied in terms of disease severity, electrocardiographic events induced by bathing occurred with relatively high frequency in severe cases where Peel's prognostic index for acute myocardial infraction was 10 or higher, complications were elicited by rehabilitation, exercise tolerance was poor, or severity was judged to be grade 3 or higher according to our Holter's classification. In mild cases, on the other hand, such electrocardiographic events were infrequent during bathing. The results of this study suggest that a warm bath is safe for the patient with a mild myocrdial infarction.
