Abstract
The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of hot pack and massage for pain in face-down posture, which is the assumed posture following vitrectomy.
This experiment was conducted on twenty-two healthy volunteers （21.5±1.8 years old） with three conditions ： only face-down posture, face-down posture plus hot pack, and face-down posture plus massage. The volunteers maintained a face-down posture for 120 minutes. A hot pack with a temperature of about 42 degrees was applied for 30 minutes beginning 45 minutes after the start of the posture. The massage was performed from shoulders to the back for 10 minutes beginning 45 minutes after the posture started. A profile of mood states, subjective pain, heart rate, autonomic nerve activity index, and skin temperature, etc. were used for evaluation. Hot pack for shoulder and Massage for neck and back significantly suppressed the volunteers’ mental fatigue in maintenance of face-down posture. Furthermore, Hot pack significantly reduced temporary subjective neck and shoulder pain, and Massage significantly reduced temporary subjective neck, shoulder and back pain in maintenance of face-down posture. However, hot pack and massage did not have an effect on heart rate increase and sympathetic nervous activity in maintenance of face-down posture. Additionally, hot pack significantly raised the temperature of the shoulder region, which was observed to decrease in maintenance of face-down posture. Furthermore, massage did not show an effect similar to the hot pack.
