Acute Physiological Response of Live-Fire Simulation Activities Affecting Cardiovascular Health in Live-Fire Instructors: A Randomized Controlled Simulation Study.

Abstract

This study aimed to assess acute physiological response of fire suppression simulation affecting cardiovascular health during repeated bouts of simulation. Fifteen live-fire instructors were randomly divided into three groups according to fire suppression simulation frequency. Vital signs, biomarkers, and heart rate variability (HRV) were measured before and after simulation. Vital signs increased immediately after fire simulation and returned to the normal range after 2 h. Most biomarker levels were changed within the normal ranges 72 h after the simulation training. However, one of the HRV frequency domains, high frequency power, was severely suppressed after 1 h and tended to recover after 2 h of simulation (P < 0.05). Vital signs and their biomarkers were changed within the normal range regardless of the number of bouts of fire suppression simulations. HRV could be used to assess the effects of fire suppression simulation on cardiovascular health.