Palm Cooling’s Heart Rate and Thermal Impact on Exercise in Multiple Sclerosis Patients
Katherine Frances Maguire, Margaret Wydotis, Jason Jaggers, Pete Quesada, Jennifer Daily, Yvette Cabrera-Rojas, John Francis Caruso. Palm Cooling’s Heart Rate and Thermal Impact on Exercise in Multiple Sclerosis Patients. Sports Med Int Open 2026; 10: a28778927.
DOI: 10.1055/a-2877-8927
Introduction: Heat strain in multiple sclerosis patients during exercise limits their benefits from this treatment. One prior study examined this topic but did not measure thermal outcomes and constitutes a knowledge gap. The current pilot study assessed palm cooling for its impact on heart rates and thermal measures.
Methods: Using a randomized within-subjects design, nine multiple sclerosis patients performed two 25-minute cycle ergometry workouts against 65 and 45% of their Astrand-Rhyming-based workloads. Heart rates, thermal flux, palm and tympanic temperatures were examined using two-way analyses of variance with repeated measures per independent variable. To control the family-wise error rate, a Bonferroni correction was applied at a lower α level of 0.0024.
Results: Paired t-tests identified sources of significant inter-treatment and -time differences. Palm temperature, thermal flux, and heart rate had significant two-way interactions. Palm temperature (η 2 p =0.39) and heart rate (η 2 p =0.22) results were significantly higher for the no palm cooling treatment at multiple times during and after workouts. Yet, thermal flux (η 2 p =0.39) was significantly higher due to palm cooling at multiple times during and after workouts.
Conclusions: Higher thermal flux from palm cooling may have evoked lower heart rates. Palm cooling may represent a practical strategy to mitigate exercise-induced heat strain in individuals with multiple sclerosis.
Keywords: conduction, cold-induced vasodilation, anastomoses, retia venosa, evaporation
In Simple Terms:
People with multiple sclerosis can overheat during exercise, which may limit the benefits they get from training. In this small pilot study, palm cooling helped pull more heat from the body, kept palm temperature lower, and was linked with lower heart rates during and after cycling. This suggests palm cooling may be a practical way to reduce exercise-related heat strain in people with MS.
Uploaded by Braeden Ostepchuk, creator of the CEU-approved course 0th Law of Physiology, co-founder of Kuhler Technologies, and inventor of Kühler.