Bioheat modeling of elderly and young for prediction of physiological and thermal responses in heat-stressful conditions

Abstract

Exposure to hot and humid conditions results in physiological changes in metabolism, cardiac output and thermoregulation of the young adult and these changes deviate with elderly due to aging. The elderly population is more vulnerable than the healthy and young population due to age-weakened physiology and thermoregulatory functions. There are, however, limited bioheat models addressing such changes due to hot exposure in the young and the elderly. This paper develops robust bioheat models for young and elderly while incorporating the physiological changes under exposure to heat-stressful conditions for both age groups the age-related changes in physiology and thermoregulation to an elderly human. However, due to a large variability of thermoregulation among the elderly population, a sensitivity analysis revealed that the average elderly is characterized by metabolic rate and cardiac output, which are lower than those of the young by 21% and 14.4%, respectively. Moreover, the thresholds of the onset of vasodilation and sweating are delayed from those of young adults by 0.5 °C and 0.21 °C, respectively. The elderly and young bioheat models were validated with number of independent published experimental studies under hot exposures in steady and transient conditions. Model predictions of core and mean skin temperatures showed good agreement with published experimental data with a discrepancy of 0.1 °C and 0.5 °C, respectively. © 2020 Elsevier Ltd