Required thermal environments for the quadriplegic persons: Analyses of questionnaires and experiments on their daily life

A physically disabled person often has additional disabilities on adaptation to the thermal environment. Since 1976, our group has carried out a series of studies to find required thermal conditions for disabled persons on several typical disabilities. This paper reports on the results of our latest questionnaire and experiments on daily thermal environment for quadriplegic persons. Among 292 quadriplegic persons with valid questionnaire, 184 (63%) were fully paralyzed. Nearly 90% of these and 60% of partially paralyzed patients were dissatisfied with the thermal environment and sweating. Several suggestive differences were found according to the broken positions of vertebrae. The results of 48 hours of field measurements on three quadriplegic subjects are compared with those obtained from questionnaire.