The Weather-Beaten Dorsal Hand Clinical Rating, Shadow Casting Optical Profilometry, and Skin Capacitance Mapping

Abstract

Laypeople commonly perceive some skin xerosis and withering (roughness) changes during winter on some parts of the body, particularly on the dorsal hands. The aim of the study was to assess the withered skin surface changes occurring during the four seasons. A total of 47 menopausal women completed the study. A group of 31 volunteers were on hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and 16 were out of HRT. Skin xerosis and scaliness were rated clinically. In addition, skin whitening was assessed by computerized shadow casting optical profilometry and by skin capacitance mapping. The volunteers were not using topical creams and over-the-counter products on their hands. Marked changes, recorded over the successive seasons, corresponded to patchy heterogeneous stratum corneum hydration and heterogeneous skin surface roughness changing over seasons; they likely resulted from changes in the environmental temperature and atmosphere moisture. The severity of the changes revealed by clinical inspection was not supported by similar directions of fluctuations in the instrumental assessments. This seemingly contradiction was in fact due to different levels of scale observation. The clinical centimetric scale and the instrumental inframillimetric scale possibly provide distinct aspects of a given biological impact.

The effect of environmental humidity and temperature on skin barrier function and dermatitis

“…Briefly, during winter, a decrease in SC lipids and an increase in unsaturated fatty acids have been identified . A decrease in skin hydration as well as an increase in SC pH and stiffness was also observed in addition to lower levels of potassium, lactate, sodium and chlorine, components of the skin NMFs . Drier skin and increased reaction to skin irritants, suggest that the skin becomes more fragile and permeable during winter time …”

Imported Skin Infections from Tropical Regions by Travelers and Immigrants to the Belgian Mosan Region

“…However, skin is the major organ of the human body being the most exposed to environmental variations. Hence, some skin conditions are inclined to present a high sensitivity to climate [14] . Climatic factors influence several functional skin features facilitating or worsening the incidence, signs and symptoms of specific skin conditions.…”

Sweat Gland Awakening on Physical Training: A Skin Capacitance Mapping Observation

“…Such electrometric assessments of the upper layers of the epidermis represented a convenient noninvasive way for assessing the SC hydration. Such properties are closely related to a series of specific SC structures and functions [6][7][8][9].…”

“…In normal conditions, the epidermis over a large part of the body produces a tidy Stratum Corneum (SC) composed of 15-20 layers or so of corneocytes with a total thickness of about [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20] µm. This part of the epidermis is continuously renewed from the granular layer, and the outermost corneocytes gradually desquamate from the surface [1].…”

“…the skin surface hydration and microrelief [6][7][8][9]. The Moisture Map HM100 device (CK Technology, Visé, Belgium) is built with a close network of microcapacitors orderly dispersed on a 18 × 12.8 mm plate protected by a thin silicon oxide layer [11].…”