The purpose of this study was to eliminate factors of accidents during Japanese style bathing of the elderly.
We investigated the age-related changes in cardiovascular and thermoregulatory function in response to the bathing at 40°C. We measured the blood pressure and the heart rate using an automatic spygmomanometer, the skin blood flow at the forearm using laser Doppler flowmetry, the tympanic temperature using a thermistor, and the sweat rate at dorsum manus using the ventilated capsule method during bathing at 40°C for 20min in 10 aged (73.5±8.4, mean±SD) and 10 young subjects (19.8±1.8).
Aged subjects failed to maintain a stable blood pressure during the immersion in the bathtub. While the heart rate during the bathing significantly changed in the young subjects, no change was observed in the aged subjects. Skin blood flow, tympanic temperature, and sweat rate increased during the bathing for both in the aged and the young subjects, though with smaller changes among aged subjects.
These findings suggest that the adaptability of cardiovascular and thermoregulatory functions to heating and hydrostatic pressure during Japanese style bathing decreases with age.
