Effectiveness of cold water immersion for treating exertional heat stress when immediate response is not possible
Flouris AD, Friesen BJ, Carlson MJ, Casa DJ, Kenny GP
Scandinavian journal of medicine & science in sports · 16 citations
How it was studied
- Design
- Controlled clinical trial (indexed by PubMed)
- Studied in
- People
- Main outcome
- Health markers and function
Who paid for it
- Funding
- Independent funding
- University or hospital
- University of Ottawa
- Government
- Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada
- Government
- Canada Foundation for Innovation
- Grants
- Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (RGPIN-298159-2009)
Based on 3 listed funder(s).
Publication
- Published
- 2015-05-06 · Scand J Med Sci Sports · vol. 25 · issue S1 · pp. 229–239
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Cited
- 21 citations · more than 78% of similar papers · 1.3× the field average
- References
- 46 works
- Access
- Free to read
- Research areas
- Thermoregulation and physiological responses · Exercise and Physiological Responses · Climate Change and Health Impacts
- Keywords
- Immersion (mathematics), Heat stress, Heat illness, Medicine, Fight-or-flight response, Ice water, Materials science, Chemistry, Animal science, Food science, Meteorology, Physics, Mathematics, Biology
- MeSH
- humans, heat stress disorders, fever, water, body temperature, treatment outcome, exercise, cryotherapy, immersion, time factors, adult, male, physical exertion, hot temperature
5 authors
From GR, CA, RU, US
- Andreas D. FlourisUniversity of Thessaly
- Brian J. FriesenUniversity of Ottawa; Department of Physiological Sciences
- M. J. CarlsonUniversity of Ottawa; Department of Physiological Sciences
- Douglas J. CasaUniversity of Connecticut
- Glen Patrick Kenny · correspondingUniversity of Connecticut; University of Ottawa; Department of Physiological Sciences
Abstract
Immediate treatment with cold water immersion (CWI) is the gold standard for exertional heatstroke. In the field, however, treatment is often delayed due to delayed paramedic response and/or inaccurate diagnosis. We examined the effect of treatment (reduction of rectal temperature to 37.5 °C) delays of 5, 20, and 40 min on core cooling rates in eight exertionally heat-stressed (40.0 °C rectal temperature) individuals. We found that rectal temperature was elevated above baseline (P 0.05). Rectal core cooling rates were similar among conditions (5 min: 0.20 ± 0.01; 20 min: 0.17 ± 0.02; 40 min: 0.17 ± 0.01 °C/min; P > 0.05). The rectal temperature afterdrop following CWI was similar across conditions (5 min: 35.95; 20 min: 35.61; 40 min: 35.87 °C; P > 0.05). We conclude that the effectiveness of 2 °C CWI as a treatment for exertional heat stress remains high even when applied with a delay of 40 min. Therefore, our results support that CWI is the most appropriate treatment for exertional heatstroke as it is capable of quickly reversing hyperthermia even when treatment is commenced with a significant delay.
Abstract via Europe PMC. Copyright remains with the authors or publisher.
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