• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.919-922
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• 2005

Generally, we take a bath to obtain a clean body as well as a good health. Human body generates various physical and emotional changes by stimulations of therapeutic effect of heat and hydraulic pressures. Accordingly, we can obtain not only relaxations but also effects of hydrotherapy. The survey of bathing/showering behaviors and therapeutic effect of heat reactions present elementary data for development of a bathing/showering system. However, there are few existing data for bathing/showering behaviors and effects. Consequently, surveys were performed to know patterns of bathing and showering, and relations between physiological changes and water temperature were examined by partial bathing on human body in this study.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2005.10a
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• pp.256-259
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• 2005

Analysis of behavior pattern and thermal response during bathing and showering provides important fundamental data when developing an automatic bathing/showering system. The behavior pattern and physiological changes during bathing/showering were measured und analyzed for the aged male group. We recorded the volunteers showering at front, back, left and right view using four CCTV cameras in order to study the behavior pattern during showering. The photographic data were analyzed by counting the frequencies of body contact and identifying zones where hands could reach. In order to study the thermal response, we measured the blood pressure (B.P), heart rate (H.R), body temperature (B.T.), breathing rate (B.R) for the different water temperatures and the locations of immersion for the young and old age groups. The results showed that the frequencies of body contacts were varied for different body sections. Also there were some body sections where hands could not be reached because of reduced pliability and muscular strength of the aged group. But we observed rather uniform body contact frequencies when a towel was used. In partial immersion bath experiments, we observed the changes of B.P. H.R and B.T in the case of young and old age groups, and the changes were more significant in the young age group.

• Science of Emotion and Sensibility
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.309-316
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• 2010

This paper proposes healthcare bathing system for improving the multisensory function and not washing. We designed various types of bathtub for developing bathing system. This system consists of whirlpool bathtub for multisensory stimulation, a cover of bathtub with visual-auditory stimulation function, a small size PC for main control, touch panel, digital multimedia broadcasting (DMB), color-changeable LED mood lighting system for improving visual sensibility and speaker. We investigate the effects on autonomic nervous system during bathing with healthcare bathing system for improving the multisensory functions. To analysis physiological parameter, body temperature, blood pressure, intraocular pressure and heart rate variability (HRV) were measured before, during and after bath using healthcare bathing system. Experiments were performed on partial immersion bath and the water temperature was kept $39{\pm}0.5^{\circ}C$. The body temperature and the heart rate variability of the subject were measured every 5 minutes before, during, and after the bath. In analysis of HRV, the parasympathetic nerve increased from starting bath and decreased after 15 minutes. So the subjects felt comfortable at 15 minutes after starting bath. Blood pressure decreased to 16mmHg maximumly however pulse increased. Bath using healthcare bathing system for improving the multisensory functions affects positively the circulation of the blood. From this results, it leaves something to be desired in evaluation of serviceability and physiological analysis using the healthcare bathing system, however, we expect to analyze more clearly the relationship between the serviceability of product, physiological change and sensibility by various physiological parameters.