Cold treatment with a unique new gadget will alleviate the symptoms of arthritis. Celebrities including boxer David Haye have praised the method of hilotherapy.
British professional boxer David Haye has admitted that hilotherapy helped him recover from serious injury. This technique is meant for the treatment of arthritis by pumping ice water to the inflamed joints, which relieves pain. Unlike traditional heating pads or ice packs, hilotherapy uses special cuffs that can change shape for any patient. For several hours, very cold water under special pressure is continuously pumped around these cuffs.
The study showed that such a long-time therapy can help achieve impressive results in the treatment of arthritis, alleviating pain and reducing inflammation as well as accelerating after-surgery healing. Surgeons use hilotherapy, created by the German company Hilotherm, to reduce the severity of postoperative edema.
The treatment of the inflamed joints with ice has been used in medicine for more than a century. However, the use of ice packs can harm the skin, as long-term exposure to extreme cold temperatures, as well as extremely hot ones, leads to burns. Hilotherapy devices allow patients to regulate the temperature at a level that is tolerable for him or her at prolonged exposure.
The perception of cold in humans is different. Someone can stand several hours at a temperature that will be a torture for another. Physiotherapists have dreamed of a device with temperature control for a long time, and now it came into wide practice .
