Original articleChanges in Lower-Leg Blood Flow During Warm-, Cold-, and Contrast-Water Therapy
Section snippets
Design
We used a repeated-measures crossover trial design for this investigation. The independent variables included 4 levels of treatment (20-min control; 20-min warm [40°C] water therapy; 20-min cold [13°C] water therapy; 20-min contrast-water therapy) and time interval (65 recorded intervals). The order of treatment was randomly assigned by using a counterbalanced scheme.
Participants
Twenty-four men (age, 23.0±2.5y; height, 177.1±6.1cm; mass, 77.2±3.4kg) who were free from injury, circulatory problems, cold
Results
The ANOVA revealed a significant treatment main effect (F3,30=38.8, P<.001) with change in blood flow differences greater than .66mL per 100mL/min considered noteworthy, as determined by the Tukey post hoc analysis (fig 3). Specifically, a significant increase in blood flow was observed during the warm-water immersion (4.35±0.45mL per 100mL/min) and contrast (2.99±1.66mL per 100mL/min) conditions as compared with the cold-water immersion (1.41±0.40mL per 100mL/min) and control (1.43±0.06mL per
Discussion
The results of this study suggest that contrast therapy produced fluctuations in blood flow throughout the 20-minute treatment. Several studies9, 10, 11, 12, 13 have been conducted measuring blood flow during hot and cold whirlpool therapy, whereas none have been performed measuring blood flow during contrast therapy. Furthermore, several other studies2, 3, 14, 15, 16 have been conducted examining the effects of other cold therapies on localized blood flow. These studies examined blood flow
Conclusions
This study has revealed that contrast-water therapy produces significant fluctuations in blood flow during a 20-minute treatment. This is valuable information because it was commonly thought that physiologic changes from warm- and cold-water therapy were not excessive enough to produce these peripheral fluctuations. We suggest that further studies involving contrast therapy to the lower leg in injured populations be carried out to determine whether our initial findings are clinically relevant.
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