Required thermal environments for the quadriplegic persons: Analyses of questionnaires and experiments on their daily life.

A physically disabled person often has additional disabilities on adaptation to the thermal environment. Since 1976, our group has carried out a series of studies to find required thermal conditions for disabled persons on several typical disabilities. This paper reports on the results of our latest questionnaire and experiments on daily thermal environment for quadriplegic persons. Among 292 quadriplegic persons with valid questionnaire, 184 (63%) were fully paralyzed. Nearly 90% of these and 60% of partially paralyzed patients were dissatisfied with the thermal environment and sweating. Several suggestive differences were found according to the broken positions of vertebrae. The results of 48 hours of field measurements on three quadriplegic subjects are compared with those obtained from questionnaire.

[An estimation of comfortable temperature for rats using thermograph (author's transl)].

For estimating optimum environmental temperature accepted as comfortable by rats themselves, we measured tail skin temperatures by thermograph and observed behaviors in adult rats at the room temperatures of 20, 22, 24, 26 and 28 degrees C. The five rats grouped in a plastic cage were inclined to be in a tight squeeze at 20, 22 and 24 degrees C whereas they set themselves separately each other at 28 degrees C. At 26 degrees C, the behaviors of the rats were the intermediate of these two types. The tail skin temperatures of these grouped five rats were kept high and the lowest was 28.5 degrees C at the room temperature of 20 degrees C. On the contrary, the tail skin temperature of the single rat in another same type cage was much lower at the room temperatures of 24 degrees C and lower and reaches to 20 degrees C at the room temperature of 20 degrees C, although it was close to those of grouped rats at 26 degrees C and almost equal to those at 28 degrees C. The inside temperatures of the cage containing five rats were higher than the room temperature but the differences were less than 2 degrees C. At the room temperature of 28 degrees C, both of the single rat and the grouped rats smeared themselves with their saliva to increase heat dissipation. From these results, we considered the ambient temperature range in which a single rat can hold the high tail skin temperature and the salivation is not necessary as the comfortable temperature range for rats.

[Fluctuation and distribution of animal room temperature and the temperature in cages (author's transl)].

The temperature of various positions in an occupied animal room (mice, rats) including inside of cages were measured using a 50 channels thermal data recorder (step time 0.5 sec, 5 min intermittent through 24 hr and continuous) in a summer day. Any short periodical fluctuation of room temperature had practically no influence on the inside temperature of plastic cages. Against small diurnal fluctuations, stable vertical gradients (about 1 degree C between tops and bottoms of racks) were observed among one hour averages of room air temperatures. Air temperature in the cage fluctuated in larger scale. (up to 3 degrees C) For controlling animal room temperature, each of short periodical fractuation, diurnal change and spasal distribution should be separately concerrned.