Physiological Recovery from Firefighting Activities in Rehabilitation and Beyond

作者：Gavin P. Horn, Steve Gutzmer, Christopher A. Fahs, Steven J. Petruzzello, Eric L. Goldstein, G. C. Fahey, Bo Fernhall, Denise L. Smith · 发表于：Prehospital Emergency Care · 年份：2011 · DOI：10.3109/10903127.2010.545474 · 被引用次数：77 · 研究领域：Occupational Health and Performance、Injury Epidemiology and Prevention、Thermoregulation and physiological responses

OBJECTIVES: The primary objective of this study was to document the timeline of physiologic recovery from firefighting activities in order to inform emergency medical services (EMS) of vital sign values that might be expected during incident rehabilitation and in developing rehabilitation protocols to make decisions about when to return personnel to the fireground. Secondarily, we compared two different incident rehabilitation strategies to determine effectiveness in reducing physiologic strain following firefighting. METHODS: A repeated-measures randomized crossover design was utilized in which firefighters conducted a controlled set of firefighting activities, after which they completed incident rehabilitation in one of two conditions: 1) similar to currently used rehabilitation protocols and 2) with active cooling and nutritional intervention. Following 15 minutes of rehabilitation, each firefighter was asked to perform a simulated rescue "dummy drag" and then recover for 120 minutes in a quiet area. Core temperature and heart rate were recorded throughout the study. Blood pressures and subendocardial viability ratios were obtained before firefighting, after firefighting, and at standardized times during rehabilitation and recovery. RESULTS: Heart rate and core temperature increased during firefighting, and core temperature continued to increase for 7 minutes after completion of firefighting activities. These values did not return to baseline until at least 50 minutes afte...