A Case of Footbath can be a Bridge to Waon Therapy in a Severe Heart Failure Patient

Abstract

A seventy two year-old female was suffered from dyspnea on effort, and went to another hospital on August 2011. She was diagnosed as heart failure and admitted to the hospital. Although drug therapy was initiated, her condition deteriorated gradually. Shewas transferred to our hospital. Echocardiography on admission showed severe left ventricular dilatation, dysfunction and severe functional mitral regurgitation. On 11th October 2011, mitral valve replacement and tricuspid annuloplasty was performed. However, the hemodynamic status was still unstable even under continuous catecholamine and diuretics infusion. Previous studies have reported that Waon therapy (soothing warm therapy), using a far infrared ray dry sauna was effective for severe chronic heart failure. We tried the therapy, but because of general fatigue the patient couldn’t keep sitting on a seat of Waon room. Instead, to raise her body temperature around 1 C, as is the key-hole of Waon therapy, we started footbath for 15 minutes and wrapping in thermal blankets for 30 minutes. The therapy raised her body temperature by 0.7 C. After initiating the therapy, her general condition was improved and we start the Waon therapy. After initiation of Waon therapy, the patient was recovered enough to discharge. Although Waon therapy is known to be effective for severe heart failure, footbath can be a bridge to Waon therapy for critically ill patients.