Case Study-Homeostasis

Clinical Case Study-Homeostasis 1. Homeostasis: stability, balance, equilibrium, the body’s attempt to maintain a constant internal environment Hyperthermia would affect this, as it throws off the body’s attempts to maintain stability inside the body, causing the person to have a very serious reaction to the change. The “set point” is the value of a controlled variable that is maintained. Your body tries to keep things at this set point. Homeostatic regulation involves receptors and effectors. The receptor receives information that something in the environment is changing, and sends the information to the control center, which processes the information. The effector responds to the command of the control center, by either enhancing the stimulus or opposing it. 2. As people get older, they are less able to maintain homeostasis, or less able to keep their bodies at a constant internal environment and adjust to higher temperatures. The inability of their bodies to control the high temperatures might make any existing medical conditions worse, putting them at an even higher risk for heat stroke or exhaustion. 3. When a person is sprayed with a spray bottle of water, their body will be cooled down through “evaporative cooling”, the process in which heat is removed from the surface of the body when liquid evaporates off it. This is the physical basis of sweating, and could be recreated with a water bottle being sprayed onto your skin. The fan would have an endothermic reaction on your body. An endothermic reaction is when your body absorbs energy from it’s surroundings, a process that would occur if a cool fan was blowing on you. 4. Vasoconstriction will impede heat loss, and shivering will create more heat.