Effect of Short Staying Spa Therapy on QOL / 日本温泉気候物理医学会雑誌

ABSTRACT

Effect of balneotherapy is said to be obtained by continuous bathing in hot spring for 2-4 weeks. However, a short staying at spa for bathing therapy is quite usual in Japan nowadays. So we conducted an investigation on the effect of bathing therapy at spa for 3-7 days (short group), comparing with the effect of the therapy for 14 days or more (long group), through the collaboration of balneologists in all over Japan. The total of 215 cases, having rheumatic, cardiovascular, metabolic, psycho-neurological, postoperative, skin or digestive diseases, of whom 135 were in the short group and 80, in the long group, were analysed for the influence of spa therapy on the patient's quality of life (QOL). Both the severity of disease by doctor's evaluation through visual analogue scale method and the patient's QOL state assessed by patient through the Face Scale method were improved significantly in both groups after the spa therapy. The disease severity and the patient's QOL state at the end of spa therapy were not changed significantly thereafter through 1 month in both groups. Patient's activities of daily living (ADL), appetite, sleep, pain, itch and fatigue, which will make up the patient's QOL, were also improved significantly after the spa therapy, if they had been disturbed or present, in both groups. All these states at the end of spa therapy were not changed significantly at 1 month after the end of spa therapy in both groups. These results may substantiate the rightfulness of patient's assessment of QOL. The tendency to normalization was found in the body weight, blood pressure and passage too after the spa therapy in both groups. A skin rash, itching or slight thermal crisis was observed in 13 cases as the side effects of spa therapy. None of them was serious. From the above results it is concluded that a short staying spa therapy for 3-7 days is effective as well as the standard long therapy on patient's QOL, and the effects last about 1 month long at least.