Exposure is a very painful condition whereby the human body succumbs to the effects of extreme weather. Though mostly associated with the warm summer months, it can also happen during the winter months when the mercury drops and people are kept indoors to keep themselves warm. Surprising details have emerged from research on elderly people who seemingly loose most of their ability to detect sudden temperature changes due to temperature sensors in the skin becoming less sensitive to the external weather factors. The skin of aged people tends to have less temperature sensitive nerves that alerts them when it becomes too cold or too warm preventing them from taking immediate action to remedy the situation.
This might explain why the elderly can deal less effectively with cold weather due to slow reflexes that gets the body into high gear preparing to deal with the sudden temperature shifts. With today’s extreme weather changes, the care and constant monitoring of such individuals, especially those who live alone are paramount, with some emergency systems being prepped to deal with these elderly people, keeping tabs and even visiting at scheduled times to determine their health.
May 22nd, 2009 at 1:56 am
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