Comparisons of Differents Percentages of Water Effectiveness During Cryotherapy Application in Reducing Superficial Skin Temperature: A Randomized Single-blind Clinical Trial.

Detailed Summary

As a therapeutic modality, cryotherapy is highly used for soft tissue damage control during acute and subacute stages. Cryotherapy is able to reduce pain, inflammatory condition, muscle spasm, nerve conduction, metabolic rate, edema formation and to prevent secondary hypoxic injury. These effects are due to the heat conduction, passing from tissue to different cryotherapy modalities, leading to tissue temperature reduction. The diversity of cryotherapy modalities in clinical practice, like crushed-ice packs, frozen food, gel packs and wetted ice packs, are widely explored by studies. To achieve anesthesia by cryotherapy it's settled that the skin temperature must reach 13,6 degrees celsius (ºC). Ice packs are the most effective modality of cryotherapy when placed directly on the skin, this effectiveness is accentuated when ice packs are associated with water. To improve the contact area the pack must be wrapped. Even though wetted ice packs are the most effective modality, there are few studies approaching it. There aren't studies analyzing an ideal percentage of water to ice in this modality either. Also, it isn't observed if the amount of water interferes on the conduction of the heat from the skin to the ice pack, and in rewarming time. Besides neither of the studies measures the amount of pain during cryotherapy application, and if there was any difference between wetted ice packs, and ice packs isolated. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to analyze the most effective cryotherapy modality for reducing skin temperature, rewarming time, and the amount of discomfort during the application.

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Interventions