Offering cooling, contrast and heat therapy all in one device, ProMOTION EV1 works for every stage of the healing process. We spoke to Dr David Rhodes and Dr Jill Alexander, practitioners working in elite sport and academia, about the three stages of recovery from acute sporting injury, and how they would apply the ProMOTION EV1 device at each stage. Here’s what they had to say…
WHEN TO APPLY COOLING
Cooling is typically applied in the acute phase of a sporting injury. We apply cooling to initially vasoconstrict and control the bleed, optimising the inflammation stage of healing. The reduction in blood flow will help in the subsequent recovery stages.
ProMOTION EV1’s cooling application can be set from 6 to 15 degrees – the optimal temperature range to apply. The addition of the compression pump and wrap and the programable control over the amount of compression applied. This allows therapists to apply optimal compression in response to the athlete’s presentation, ensuring you are not increasing the pain of the athlete.
SWITCHING FROM COLD TO CONTRAST
Contrast therapy is used when the patient starts moving out of those initial actual stages of injury, where the inflammation is beginning to stop. The cooling helps to control any ends of the inflammatory stage that’s occurring, while the heat therapy helps with proliferation, maximising the tissue pliability.
Typically this is done through cold and warm water immersion, however with ProMOTION EV1 you don’t need water to apply the contrast therapy. ProMOTION EV1 is also a more focussed tool than other
methods that targets therapy on the injury.
WHEN TO APPLY HEAT
Heat therapy is typically applied when the patient is moving out of the proliferation stage into the remodelling stage of healing, when there is a transference to harder and stronger tissue being laid down. Applying heat can aid with the alignment and pliability of those tissues to make them stronger.
With ProMOTION EV1 you can set the heat to the optimal 38 – 40 degrees temperature range. For deeper tissue injuries applying compression will allow those deeper tissues to get the therapeutic effect.
