Cold or Heat Therapy

 Hot pack

Cold pack

Last Friday (15th July 2011) was my last day of clinical practice at Hospital Sungai Buloh. There are much knowledge i had learn from the practice. Its give me a larger idea about being a physiotherapist. 

          Since I had been placed at the hospital, one thing that interests me is the issue of using ice or heat therapy to certain injury among patient. Patients always ask me whether to use ice or heat modalities for their case. Besides, they are also saying that they do not know which one to use at home and eventually, they use both without a correct guideline. 

This confusion is not only occurred in Hospital Sungai Buloh. When I was searching about the application of hot and cold therapy in the internet, many results show the confusion whether to use hot or cold. 

For quick guideline, I'll bring to you to this website for your reading:

Ice or Heat Therapy - Medicinenet.com

for summarization, this will be the simpler one. use cold treatment such as ice application for fresh injury like ankle sprain that usually characterized by occurrence of swelling and slightly increase in temperature (warmth)

use heat therapy such as hot pack for chronic pain such as back pain or OA knee.

There are two simpler methods on how to prepare the ice or heat applications at home. For ice application, a patient needs to wrap ices in a plastic bag. Then, cover the affected area with a handkerchief. Apply the ice bag and tie it with a cloth or another handkerchief so that the bag is compressed at the affected area. Next, elevate the affected area higher than heart level for circulation.

For heat therapy, a patient can buy hot pack from the pharmacies and just heat it up. Apply towel to the hot pack about 6 to 8 layers from the skin to prevent skin burn to affected area. Both these applications should be applied not more than 20 minutes for 1 session because the effectiveness of thermal treatment may reduce after 20 minutes. Besides, if you put ice application for more than 20 minutes, it may cause you frostbite.