Experimental study on skin temperature and thermal response of the foot-bather

Abstract

Although warm footbath has been widely enjoyed in many Asian countries, little information is known about its effect on people's thermal responses. This paper experimentally investigated the variations in objective and subjective thermal responses of foot bathers during summer and winter. The subjective thermal responses of foot bathers (12 males and 11 females) were collected by questionnaire, and their body skin temperatures were measured at seven locations. Due to blood circulation, the heat gained from immersed feet could affect other body parts, while the thermal effect of warm footbath varied in different body parts. The results indicate that the footbath could cause marked increases in the thermal sensation of feet, legs and overall body. Participants feel more comfortable at the early stage than other stages during footbath, even though the water temperature is constant. Higher water temperature is expected by the participants to remain footbath comfort. Additionally, noticeable differences in skin temperature and subjective human responses of the male and the female foot bathers were observed. This study demonstrates that the females' foot is more sensitive to warm footbath than those of males. It can be concluded that warm footbath contributes to more satisfaction of thermal environment especially in winter and that males were likely to be more acceptable with footbath than females.

Increasing Warmth in Adolescents with Anorexia Nervosa: A Randomized Controlled Crossover Trial Examining the Efficacy of Mustard and Ginger Footbaths

“…Footbaths are frequently used to improve body warmth regulation [12]. Because of the high number of capillaries in the feet, footbaths not only stimulate local blood circulation by dilating the vessels [13,14] but also can impact one's overall thermal response [12,14].…”

“…As we did not measure core temperature, we are unable to determine if the changes in skin temperature we noted are associated with changes in the core temperature. e slight decreases in hand and face skin temperature might originate from heat dissipation and evaporation from the skin due to lower room temperatures [14,43].…”

The ALMA Survey of 70 μm Dark High-mass Clumps in Early Stages (ASHES). I. Pilot Survey: Clump Fragmentation

“…MALT90 was built on the ATLASGAL 870 µm catalogues (Schuller et al 2009;Contreras et al 2013), from which a sample of 3246 highmass clumps was selected for follow-up in 16 spectral lines. The first MALT90 line catalogue was presented in Rathborne et al (2016) and several studies have taken advantage of the molecular line data (e.g., Hoq et al 2013;Miettinen 2014;He et al 2015He et al , 2016Yu, & Wang 2015;Stephens et al 2015Stephens et al , 2016Contreras et al 2016;Jackson et al 2018Jackson et al , 2019Li et al 2019a,b). By combining Herschel and ATLASGAL dust continuum emission observations, Guzmán et al (2015) derived tem-peratures and column densities for the MALT90 survey targets.…”

Effect of different thermal stimuli on improving microcirculation in the contralateral foot

“…[25,42], which is generally more convenient to use, and is more suitable for detecting nerve and vascular function because of the instantaneous change in temperature and blood ow in the contralateral limb. The warm bath is widely used in the clinical and home therapy [22], and has a longer lasting thermal effect, and may be more suitable for use by people who suffers from skin lesions or wears an external xator, and cannot accept the heat source being focused on one side of the limb.…”