Loading...
Internal and external cooling methods and their effect on body temperature, thermal perception and dexterity
Maley, MJ Minett, GM Bach, Aaron JE Zietek, SA Stewart, KL Stewart, IB
Maley, MJ
Minett, GM
Bach, Aaron JE
Zietek, SA
Stewart, KL
Stewart, IB
Editors
Other contributors
Affiliation
Epub Date
Issue Date
2018-01-22
Submitted date
Alternative
Abstract
© 2018 Maley et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Objective The present study aimed to compare a range of cooling methods possibly utilised by occupational workers, focusing on their effect on body temperature, perception and manual dexterity. Methods Ten male participants completed eight trials involving 30 min of seated rest followed by 30 min of cooling or control of no cooling (CON) (34C, 58% relative humidity). The cooling methods utilised were: ice cooling vest (CV0), phase change cooling vest melting at 14C (CV14), evaporative cooling vest (CVEV), arm immersion in 10C water (AI), portable water-perfused suit (WPS), heliox inhalation (HE) and ice slushy ingestion (SL). Immediately before and after cooling, participants were assessed for fine (Purdue pegboard task) and gross (grip and pinch strength) manual dexterity. Rectal and skin temperature, as well as thermal sensation and comfort, were monitored throughout. Results Compared with CON, SL was the only method to reduce rectal temperature (P = 0.012). All externally applied cooling methods reduced skin temperature (P<0.05), though CV0 resulted in the lowest skin temperature versus other cooling methods. Participants felt cooler with CV0, CV14, WPS, AI and SL (P<0.05). AI significantly impaired Purdue pegboard performance (P = 0.001), but did not affect grip or pinch strength (P>0.05). Conclusion The present study observed that ice ingestion or ice applied to the skin produced the greatest effect on rectal and skin temperature, respectively. AI should not be utilised if workers require subsequent fine manual dexterity. These results will help inform future studies investigating appropriate pre-cooling methods for the occupational worker.
Citation
Maley, M.J., Minett, G.M., Bach, A.J.E., Zietek, S.A., Stewart, K.L. and Stewart, I.B. (2018) Internal and external cooling methods and their effect on body temperature, thermal perception and dexterity. PLoS ONE 13(1): e0191416. https://doi.org/ 10.1371/journal.pone.0191416
Publisher
Journal
Research Unit
PubMed ID
29357373
PubMed Central ID
Embedded videos
Type
Journal article
Language
en
Description
© 2018 The Authors. Published by PLOS. This is an open access article available under a Creative Commons licence.
The published version can be accessed at the following link on the publisher’s website: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0191416
Series/Report no.
ISSN
1932-6203
EISSN
1932-6203
ISBN
ISMN
Gov't Doc #
Sponsors
This project is financially supported by the US Government through the Technical Support Working Group within the Combating Terrorism Technical Support Office.
Rights
Licence for published version: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International