Physiological Monitoring

Physiological monitoring of staff is now becoming a more realistic and appropriate issue to consider. Trainees, who have unknown heat tolerance, potentially see the greatest reduction in risk when considering the number of exposures and hospitalisations due to hyperthermia. Firefighters tackling large fires, exposed for a long period of time could benefit from targeted recovery periods and tasks based on physiological values. Fire instructors exposed regularly gain in awareness of heat loading of time and allocation of roles.

There are currently a variety of products that are becoming available that potentially offer a means of physiological monitoring heart rate, core temperature, body position and location. The problem is that at present no system meets all these needs and accurately measures core temperaure in a feasibly and at realistic cost.

• Telemetry pills systems are not feasible requiring ingestion 6hrs prior to exposure at a cost of £40 per pill.
• Algorithm systems using heart rate and skin temperature to predict core temperature or other indicative values are less accurate, especially for severe heat exposure.
• One off tympanic devices are highly inaccurate and under-estimate temperature by a few degrees.
• At present, fitted in-ear systems may offer the most feasible and cost effective method within reasonable accuracy. However, systems are still in developmental and testing stages.

Other considerations should be on:

• How this is then implemented and the data is used to affect working patterns and efficiency.
• How to get this data to appropriate people via networks or to a cloud, especially in difficult environments

If you would like to know more or want advice on systems we would be happy to help.