Cryotherapy for Rehabilitation

The Cryotherapy Video Set is an outstanding instructional tool that clearly demonstrates why cold therapy works and how to use it to treat and rehabilitate joint and muscle injuries.

Based on Ken Knight's book, Cryotherapy in Sport Injury Management, and developed under his close supervision, these videos can be used by sports medicine professionals to

- help athletes understand cryotherapy and comply with the recommended self-therapy,
- teach sport first aid or athletic training courses, and
- make presentations to local sports groups.

Coaches also will find the videos useful for learning the rehabilitation procedures of cryokinetics and cryostretch. They can send a set home with injured athletes to teach them how to apply cryotherapy techniques to themselves. Plus, coaches and student athletic trainers will want to watch the videos each season to review the correct steps for applying ice to treat sports injuries.

The first videotape, Cryotherapy for First Aid, uses animated depictions of the injury process at the cellular level to explain why and how cryotherapy slows this process and speeds healing. The tape then introduces the RICES approach--Rest, Icing, Compression, Elevation, and Stabilization--for immediate treatment of injuries. Viewers will see a coach applying the principles of RICES to treat an injured player and then the same injured player using RICES to treat himself at home.

The second videotape, Cryotherapy for Rehabilitation, shows how to get injured athletes back into action quickly by using the advanced yet simple techniques of cryokinetics and cryostretch. Viewers can see how icing combined with exercise rehabilitates an injured ankle in just a few days and how ice, stretching, and proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation (PNF) together speed the recovery of an arm muscle strain.

An essential item for every training room and sports medicine clinic, the Cryotherapy Video Set is a valuable resource in the immediate treatment and long-term care of sprains, strains, and spasms.