H is for Heat Therapy: understanding thermotherapy and its uses

Temperature can play a huge role in rehabilitation and pain reduction whether it’s by cooling or heating the affected area. Heat therapy – also known as thermotherapy and cryotherapy – is an excellent service to offer for physiotherapists, acupuncturists and masseuses. Physical therapy professionals are well placed to study heat therapy and bring it into their practices.  

Sounds like something you could offer? Let’s take a look at the ins and outs of heat therapy.  

Heat Therapy 101 

Heat therapy is the act of changing the temperature of a section of the skin and local muscles to gain a specific result; often a reduction in pain. As heat and cold can be targeted easily, it’s a useful method of treatment that minimises overlap to surrounding areas.  

Heat can be applied via infra-red lamps, heat pads, saunas and topical creams. Cold can be applied via cooling pads, ice baths, cooling sprays and topical creams. The method you use depends on how closely you need to target an area as well as the patient’s preference.  

The benefits of heat 

A fundamental result of heating tissue is vasodilation and therefore increased blood flow to the heated area. Heat application also increases tissue extensibility and is said to encourage healing. Increasing the temperature can also relax muscles and ease muscular pain.  

Thermotherapy can be used at a superficial level or at depth, right down to deep tissue and even bones. A 2005 study found that deep heating improved ankle dorsiflexion considerably more than superficial heating (which still improved movement more than no treatment at all). Whether you apply superficial heat or deep heat depends entirely on the issue at hand and body part.  

Heat therapy is used for a wide range of conditions and types of pain. Of course, we’re all familiar with the simple treatment of hot water bottles! Common problems treated with thermotherapy include soreness resulting from over-exertion, cramps and muscular pain not related to strain or sprains, fibromyalgia and osteoarthritis.  

It’s vital that heat is never applied to inflammation, infected areas or fresh wounds.  

The benefits of cold 

Where heat is useful for chronic pain, aches and soreness, cooling is ideal for fresh injuries and inflammation. Inflammation is a natural and often helpful reaction to an injury but it can also come with a huge amount of discomfort and pain.  

Muscle injuries, as opposed to muscle soreness, are often treated with cooling therapies in the first instance. This reduces inflammation and calms the injury down. Where once icing was recommended to aid healing, current advice is to ice initially for pain relief. Acute injuries such as sprains and bruising is most commonly iced, so long as the skin isn’t broken. Why? 

Inflammation exists for a good reason, particularly when it comes to open wounds. Where there is no infection risk, I.e., no open wound, inflammation is a little overkill. In this instance, it’s important to cool inflammation to limit both the pain and damage it might cause. Cold compresses and ice packs are good for this.  

Our thermotherapy tools  

Thermotherapy is often used alongside physiotherapy and acupuncture so it likely already has a place in your line of work. We stock far-infrared mats and lamps as we’ve found this is one of the most popular heat therapy treatments offered in clinics. Easy to clean, control and suitable for a wide array of issues, infrared is a fantastic method of heat treatment.  

For acute injuries, we stock ice spray that are essential for any sports physio out in the field. This works as a fast pain reliever for sprains and injuries. 

Check out our range of clinic and physio essentials through the menu bar above or get in touch with a member of our team if you need something you can’t find.  

Share this story: