Cryo-compression Benefits

• Helps speed healing post surgery
• Can reduce workout pain
• Can assist with arthritis flare ups
• Accelerates muscle recovery
• Boosts blood circulation for faster healing
• Helps prevent fluid buildup
• Can reduce the need for pain medication

Breaking the ice on pain…

Treating arthritis is tricky, as is recovering from a painful worker injury or athletic injury.
Evidence abounds for cryotherapy and compression used in isolation.
But cryotherapy and compression work much better as a team!
Here is the latest medical and scientific evidence on the benefits of cryo-compression.

Cold v compression

In this 2024 peer-reviewed study in BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders Journal, patients were given either cryotherapy only, or cryotherapy AND compression (CC) after knee surgery.
The study reported that the combined therapy patients performed significantly better on multiple measures including
- Knee joint range of motion
- Pain at rest and during activity
- The 6-minute walking test
“Both cryotherapy methods improved joint ROM (range of motion), trophic changes and pain and function,” the authors found. However adding dynamic compression to the cryotherapy protocol provided further benefits: a significantly faster improvement in passive knee flexion ROM, a greater reduction of swelling, and pain during activity.

Source: Randomised controlled trial of compressive cryotherapy versus standard cryotherapy after total knee arthroplasty: pain, swelling, range of motion and functional recovery, BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders, February 2024.

May reduce opioid use

This study of 200 patients who underwent unilateral shoulder surgery between December 2019 and February 2023 found that cryo-pneumatic compression (also known as cryo-compression) reduced opioid consumption and improved function after shoulder surgery.
“The opioid use reductions demonstrated in this study suggest that cryo-pneumatic compression in conjunction with multi-modal opioid-=sparing protocols further reduces the reliance on narcotic medications,” wrote Associate Professor of Orthopedic Surgery Moin Khan, McMaster University in Ontario Canda.

Source: Cryo-pneumatic compression may reduce opioid use, improve function after shoulder surgery, Healio, August 27, 2024

Helps rheumatoid arthritis

“By pooling 6 studies including 257 rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients, we showed a significant decrease in pain visual analogic scale (mm) and 28-joint disease activity score after chronic cryotherapy in RA patients,” concluded authors in the international journal, Expert Review of Clinical Immunology, 2014.
“For molecular pathways, local cryotherapy induces an intrajoint temperature decrease, which might downregulate several mediators involved in joint inflammation and destruction (cytokines, cartilage-degrading enzymes, proangiogenic factors) but studies are rare.
“Cryotherapy should be included in RA therapeutic strategies as an adjunct therapy, with potential corticosteroid and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug dose-sparing effects.”

Source: Cryotherapy in inflammatory rheumatic diseases: a systematic review, Expert Rev Clinical Immunology, 2014

Post Surgery Improvement

This study in the peer-reviewed medical journal Neurospine in 2019, discusses post-operative dynamic cryo-compression (DC) therapy applied for 30 minutes every 6 hours after surgery.
Pain was measured by a visual analogue scale (VAS) in the preoperative period, immediately after surgery and every 6 hours postoperatively for the first 72 hours of the hospital stay.
Patients’ pain medication requirements were monitored using the patient-controlled analgesia system and patient charts.
“The results of this study demonstrated a positive association between the use of DC therapy and accelerated improvement in patients during early rehabilitation after adult spine surgery, compared to patients who were treated with painkillers only,” the authors concluded.

Source: Cryo-Compression Therapy After Elective Spinal Surgery for Pain Management: A Cross-Sectional Study with Historical Control, Neurospine Journal 2018

Safety of cryotherapy

This study in the Journal of Sport Rehabilitation discusses how post-surgical and acute orthopaedic patients are frequently treated with consecutive systematic cryotherapy despite the void of data to support treatment safety or effectiveness.
The purpose of the study was to examine the occurrence of frostbite and measure skin temperature during the application of cryo-compression protocols.
The application of 7 consecutive cryotherapy treatments with compression “did not result in any signs or symptoms of frostbite and produced similar skin temperatures with each ‘on’ cycle,” the authors found.

Source: Effects of 7 Consecutive Systematic Applications of Cryotherapy with Compression, Journal of Sport Rehabilitation, 2022

Improved ACL sugery pain

A meta-analysis of seven randomised clinical trial in the Journal of Knee Surgery, found that while post-operative drainage and range of motion were not significantly different between cryotherapy and the control group, there was a “statistically significant benefit in post-operative pain control” in the cryotherapy group v control after ACL reconstruction.

Source: Cryotherapy after ACL reconstruction: a meta-analysis, Journal of Knee Surgery, April 2005