ABSTRACT

Bathing is an essential part of Japanese culture, butbathing-related deaths have been a serious problem for theJapanese elderly people. The purpose of this study was topropose a safe bathing method for them. Environmental factorssuch as bathroom and water temperature and their effects on thephysiological responses were observed. The research participantswere 6 males and 8 females aged between 65 and 79 years. Thephysiological indexes that used to evaluate the effects of bathingwere pulse, blood pressure, pressure rate product, along withsubjective symptomatic indexes. These indexes were assessedthroughout the entire process of bathing, starting at the restingperiod before the bath, continuing through the duration of the bathand concluding at one hour after the bath. Both physiological andsubjective indexes were measured totally 20 times throughout thestudy. The major findings were that a room temperature of 27℃caused less physiologic stress on the participants compared to aroom temperature of 20℃. A bathing water temperature of 38℃was found to be the safest, although the level of bathingsatisfaction was lower when compared to the 42℃ condition.