Abstract
The present study aimed to determine the association between participants’ subjective symptoms and physiological responses to physical load when receiving a foot bath in a fixed supine position. Both male and female subjects from late middle to old age were included in the study. During the foot bath, the following factors were investigated：whether participants experienced bodily burden or not, and if so, what they experienced and how their body pressure and autonomic nervous system reacted. Participants were divided into two groups, positive and negative, according to their experience of bodily burden. Results indicated that subjective symptoms of bodily burden were observed, but the degree of this negative feeling was “slight” and that subjective effects of positive feelings, such as “comfortable” and “relaxed,” were experienced by subjects. Changes in body pressure were present in the positive and negative groups；changes were observed in the places regarding which the positive group had complained. Before their complaints regarding subjective symptoms, upward tendencies in parasympathetic nerve activity and lower tendencies in sympathetic nerve activity were recorded. In the negative group, upward tendencies in parasympathetic nerve activity and downward tendencies in sympathetic nerve activity within 6 min and 12 min of initiating the foot bath were observed, respectively. Accordingly, there were only slight subjective symptoms of physical load when receiving foot baths in a fixed supine position, and the comfort of the foot bath perceived through subjective and physiological effects was demonstrated.
