Cryo plus Ultrasound Therapy, a Novel Rehabilitative Approach for Football Players with Acute Lateral Ankle Injury Sprain: A Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial

Effectiveness of physical agent modalities for pain relief in injured athletes: A systematic review

IntroductionFrom a rehabilitation perspective, various approaches can be applied to help athletes overcome injury, including drugs, physical agent modalities (PAMs) with conventional physical therapy. This systematic review aimed to evaluate the impact of physical agent modalities (PAMs) for pain relief in injured athletes.MethodsPubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science were systematically searched from inception until May 8th, 2024. The papers were considered eligible for review in compliance with the conditions determined by the following PICO model: P) Participants: injured athletes; I) Intervention: magnetic therapy, TENS, lasertherapy, ultrasound therapy, diathermy, and extracorporeal shockwave therapy (ESWT); C) Comparator: NA; O) Outcome measure: any pain assessment. PROSPERO registration number: CRD42024532304ResultsStudy selection reported a total of 785 records, resulting in 484 articles after duplicate removal. After the title and abstract screening, 433 papers were excluded and 51 articles were evaluated for eligibility. Therefore, 21 studies were included, involving a total of 806 subjects: 10 ESWT, 1 Cryotherapy, 2 Cryo + ultrasound, 3 diathermy, 1 NMES, 1 TENS, 2 Laser therapy, 1 combined procedure.ConclusionsThe systematic review indicated potential effectiveness of PAMs in managing and reducing pain in sport-related injuries. Taken together, our findings suggested a positive role of ESWT in term of pain relief, also considering that these PAMs are the most used in these subjects. However, the high heterogeneity of the results could not consent to define the specific effect of the single PAMs.

Effectiveness of cryo plus ultrasound therapy versus diathermy in combination with high-intensity laser therapy for pain relief in footballers with muscle injuries: A prospective study

BACKGROUND

Muscle injuries are common traumatic events in the clinical practice of the rehabilitation field. There is still a gap in the scientific literature on the effectiveness of physical agent modalities in the management of muscle injuries in athletes.

OBJECTIVE

The aim of this study was to assess the effectiveness of cryo plus ultrasound therapy com-pared to diathermy in combination with high-intensity laser therapy (HILT) for pain relief in professional footballers with muscle injuries.

METHODS

A case-control study was conducted on 31 professional footballers with a muscle injury of the lower limbs. Of these, 17 patients, assigned to a Group A (AG), were treated with HILT and cryoultrasound therapy; the remaining 14 patients, assigned to a Group B (BG), underwent HILT and diathermy. We assessed the extent of the pain, the size of the muscle injury, frequency of recurrence and number of days to recovery, at the time of recruitment, at the end of the rehabilitation and 3 months after the injury.

RESULTS

Group A athletes had a greater benefit on pain (4.65 ± 0.61 vs 3.24 ± 0.63; p< 0.05) and muscle injury recurrence. The return to play in the athletes of group A took place 4.73 days earlier.

CONCLUSION

HILT and cryo plus ultrasound therapy, in combination with therapeutic exercise, rep-resent a valid strategy in the treatment of muscle injuries in professional footballers.