Fans Not Allowed For The Elderly Especially During High Temperature, Experts Advise

A recent study shows that elderly people should not sit in front of the fan, especially if the weather heat is rising. Though fans could be beneficial to be cooled from the scorching heat, experts conducted an experimental survey which proves that it's much safer for the elderly to abstain from the use of a fan.

Experts gathered nine people over 60 years old and conducted the study on how they would react if they sit in front of the fan while experiencing a 108 degree Fahrenheit of temperature. Results show that older people tend to feel hotter when sitting in front of the fan.

Volunteers include 6 women and 3 men with the average age of 68. The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, internal medicine Professor Craig Cardinal and his team were able to study the unusual circumstances. They were asked to sit in a room for 100 minutes with a temperature of 108 degrees Fahrenheit. Though, this temperature is very high professor Cardinal said that it occurs in real life such as the heat wave that happened in Chicago in 1995.

Volunteers were designated randomly, either they sit in the room with no fan or some days they were observed with a 16-inch fan, three feet away from them. For the first 30 minutes, the humidity is at 30 percent with the increase of two percent every 30 minutes up to the maximum humidity of 70 percent.

Results show that the internal body temperatures were three to four-tenths of a degree higher during the fan session. Thus, heart rate rises of up 10 beats per minute, according to Washington Post.

Professor Cardinal said, "The concern that we have is that if someone were to sit in front of the fan for eight hours a day, we don't know how high their core temperature [or heart rate] will become,If that could cause a temperature to be a degree or a degree and a half higher, that could have detrimental effects."

In line with the research, Professor Cardinal suggested that air conditioning is the optimal way to cool-off the elderly. Meanwhile, Dr. Sarah Samaan cardiologist at the Heart Hospital at Baylor in Plano Texas agrees on the studies conducted by Prof. Cardinal. She added that air conditioning is the best option, but wet compress could help as well and so does hydration with beverage preferably water, According to Health Daily.