Zhou, Haixia;
Yu, Wei;
Zhao, Keyao;
Shan, Hanyu;
Zhou, Shan;
Wei, Shen;
Ouyang, Linyuan;
(2024)
Thermal demand characteristics of elderly people with varying levels of frailty in residential buildings during the summer.
Journal of Building Engineering
, 84
, Article 108654. 10.1016/j.jobe.2024.108654.
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Abstract
As society ages, there is a growing concern for the comfort and health of elderly people. Differences in the degree of physiological aging in the elderly population lead to possible differences in their ability of adapting to environmental changes to maintain thermal comfort. To verify such differences in thermal environmental demands due to aging and physiological function changes, this study has used Fried’s frailty classification method in combination with a wristband device for a field survey of 394 elderly people in residential buildings in Chongqing, China. The study was carried out in the summer and measured participants’ both psychological and physiological responses. The study result showed that frailer elderly people had higher thermal sensitivity and a narrower range of comfortable temperatures. The neutral temperature was identified to be 25.8 °C for non-frailty people, 26.9 °C for pre-frailty people, and 27.9 °C for frailty people, with comfort temperature intervals of 24.0 °C–30.0 °C for non-frailty people, 24.3 °C–29.3 °C for pre-frailty people and 25.9 °C–29.3 °C for frailty people. In terms of physiological regulation, frail elderly people showed lower sweating rates (SI) and pulse intensity (PI), with higher heart rates (HR) in summer. The study provides evidence that the frailty of physiological functions has an innegletable impact on elderly people’s thermal demand, so when designing indoor thermal environment for them their frailty condition needs to be properly considered.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Thermal demand characteristics of elderly people with varying levels of frailty in residential buildings during the summer |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1016/j.jobe.2024.108654 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jobe.2024.108654 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions. |
| Keywords: | Elderly people, thermal demand, frailty, neutral temperature, physiological regulation |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of the Built Environment |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10186880 |
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