Abstract
PurposeThe risk for local cold injuries has been linked to poor cold-induced vasodilation (CIVD) during cold exposure and to poor rewarming after cold exposure. The purpose of this study is to establish the relation between CIVD and rewarming speed.MethodsTwelve participants immersed one hand in ice water for 30 min to evoke CIVD and the other hand in ice water for 10 min to investigate the rewarming profile. The ring, middle and index fingertip temperatures were monitored during hand immersion and the resistance index of frostbite (RIF) was calculated. RIF depends on minimal (Tmin) and mean (Tmean) finger skin temperature and onset time. Rewarming was quantified using an infrared imaging system and the rewarming speed over 19 min was determined.ResultsTmin (5.8 ± 3.0 °C) and Tmean (10.4 ± 3.0 °C) caused non-distinctive contributions to the total RIF-scores so that onset time (12.7 ± 3.1 min) became the dominant factor. A significant negative correlation between RIF and rewarming speed was found (rs = − 0.60, p = 0.041).ConclusionsThe negative relation between RIF and rewarming speed may be explained by the common observation that onset time relates to the temperature of fingertip tissue, while Tmin, Tmean and rewarming speed relates to body thermal status. The rewarming test is to be preferred over the CIVD test in terms of ease of use, but the predictive value of the rewarming test for cold injuries is limited, cannot replace the RIF since onset time of finger vasodilation is not included and should be further investigated.
Highlights
Low ambient temperatures in combination with reduced body core temperatures may lead to reduced blood flow to the extremities in an attempt to preserve body heat (Daanen et al 1997)
Previous research has shown that both cold-induced vasodilation (CIVD) and rewarming have predictive value for the risk of local cold injuries, the statistical power is low: only 12 subjects with cold injuries for CIVD (Daanen and van der Struijs 2005) and 5 subjects with cold injuries for rewarming (Brändström et al 2008)
We determined the relationship between the resistance index of frostbite (RIF), based on the onset time, Tmin and Tmean of the CIVD response, and rewarming speed
Summary
Low ambient temperatures in combination with reduced body core temperatures may lead to reduced blood flow to the extremities in an attempt to preserve body heat (Daanen et al 1997). Cold injuries may occur (Castellani and Young 2016), in particular in people that are physically active in cold environments (Cappaert et al 2008). In mountaineers it is reported that cold injuries (hypothermia and frostbite) cover 3–5% of all injuries, whereas in Nordic skiers this is one-fifth of all injuries (Cappaert et al 2008). In military personnel this varies from 0.2 to 366 per 1000 exposures (Cappaert et al 2008). Cold injuries range from hypothermia to local cold injuries that can be of the freezing and non-freezing type (Long III et al 2005)
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