Saline and brine bathing is most frequently applied in the form of full or partial baths. A few health resorts have thermal water wells, which allows them to offer warm briny, saline and brine pools. This considerably extends the potential types of therapy they can carry out. Movement-based exercise performed in a pool of warm saline water or brine water has a positive impact on numerous diseases. The fact that the buoyancy in these waters is greater than that of water from the public supply means that moving the body in them is much easier. Patients can carry out movements which would cause them a great deal of difficulty in normal conditions and this facilitates the strengthening of debilitated muscles and their improved efficiency.
It is a simple matter to prepare a briny or saline bath at home, using the ordinary rock salt available from chemists’ and other shops.
The quantity of salt required to obtain bath water of a specific concentration can be calculated once the capacity of the bath itself is known. For instance, for a bath with a capacity of two hundred litres:
- to obtain a concentration of one per cent, add two kilos of salt;
- to obtain a concentration of two per cent, add four kilos of salt;
- to obtain a concentration of four per cent, add eight kilos of salt.