Abstract des Autors

This study examined the effects of gender and age difference on the electrocardiographic response to apneic facial immersion (AFI). Twenty males (aged 27.2+/-3.8 yrs) and 16 females (aged 25.1+/-3.7 yrs) served on the study of gender while 94 males and females (aged 13 to 67 yrs) served on the study of age. There was a significant difference between males and females in heart rate response in a few time series stages after AFI of 15øC and 30øC water temperature, however, there was no significant gender difference during each AFI in the bradycardiac response, incident rates and kinds of arrhythmias, latency of arrhythmias during AFI (LADA) and relative latency (RL). For the age study significant quadratic correlations were found between the bradycardiac response during each AFI and age in spite of a large individual difference. The incident rates of arrhythmias were reduced significantly with age. Also, incidental arrhythmias of the younger group were partially different from those of the young group, suggesting the characteristic difference by growth and development. The incidental manner of arrhythmias after AFI of the middle and elder group (aged 40 to 67 yrs) was suggestive of a part of their age-related feature. Although LADA was significantly shorter in the younger group than in the young group, there was no significant difference in RL between both groups. From these results, it was suggested that although gender need not be considered very carefully, age should be, for the method and criterion of AFI test. Verf.-Referat