A Review of Methods and Measurement Instrumentation for Sweat Testing

Sweating is a biological function, related to thermoregulation and controlled by the autonomic nervous system. Therefore, the assessment of sweat glands production is a powerful tool to acquire crucial physiological measures that can be used to diagnose or to follow-up a condition of autonomic neuropathy. In recent years different tests have been used to evaluate sudomotor function. We will discuss some of them and will describe their main characteristics: Silastic Imprint Test (SIT), Dynamic Sweat Test (DST), Sensitive Sweat Test (SST), Quantitative Direct and Indirect Test of Sudomotor Function (QDIRT), Quantitative Sudomotor Axon Reflex Test (QSART) and SUDOSCAN.