Summer brings warmer temperatures and outdoor sports, but exercising in extreme heat can lead to heat-related illness such as heat exhaustion. If you've been outdoors in warm temperatures for several days and haven't been drinking enough fluids, heat exhaustion could affect you.

Who's at risk? According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the elderly, people with high blood pressure and people who work or exercise outdoors are especially prone to heat exhaustion, which causes symptoms such as heavy sweating, muscle cramps, tiredness, weakness, dizziness, headache, nausea, vomiting and fainting.

If the symptoms of heat exhaustion are mild, you can cool off in an air-conditioned room while drinking plenty of cool beverages, especially water. Taking a cool bath and resting are also effective ways to handle heat exhaustion. If symptoms are severe, a person is at increased risk (such as an elderly person or someone with heart problems or high blood pressure) or a person has a fast and weak pulse and breathing rate, seek medical attention for heat exhaustion right away.

Related information: Senior care | Hypertension | Exercise tips

Sources:  Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Environmental Health: Heat Exhaustion, http://www.cdc.gov/nceh/hsb/extremeheat/heatexhaustion.htm.