Development of novel heating towels for thermo therapy

Abstract

A new heating textile has been developed in the present research for thermotherapy treatment. The heating textile was developed by integrating a metallic fibre based heating element within the structure of a terry towel. A specially designed electronic control unit that comply with the medical standards was also developed for easy, safe and proper temperature regulation. The performance of this new heating system has been evaluated by conducting a survey that involves a group of 20 patients, who need thermotherapy and are also familiar with the conventional thermotherapy systems. Thermotherapy was performed on these patients by a physical therapist using similar conditions used for conventional systems and the different performance aspects of the heating towel (such as visual aspect, comfort, maximum temperature of use, ease of use, heating time) was rated in a scale of 0-5. The outcome of this survey demonstrated that the developed heating towel showed excellent results in every aspects and possesses desired characteristics in terms of both comfort and performance.