Industry News – Pain relieving ICE-O-therm uses simultaneous heat and cold
Maria DiDanieli
Features Clinical TechniquesJuly 22, Toronto, Ont. – Canadian medical device manufacturer Saringer Life Science Technologies was at the Practice OpportUNITY 2011 held by CMCC on March 24 demonstrating its pain treatment device ICE-O-therm.
July 22, Toronto, Ont. – Canadian medical device manufacturer Saringer Life Science Technologies was at the Practice OpportUNITY 2011 held by CMCC on March 24 demonstrating its pain treatment device ICE-O-therm.
This is a small, hand-held, hyper-stimulating device that has been proven effective in temporarily reducing, or eliminating, pain to joints, head, neck and other areas where chronic pain is typically encountered.
ICE-O-therm works by applying both heat and cold simultaneously to the affected area, creating maximum stimulation known as the Thermal Grill Illusion and overwhelming the nerves in the area to block out pain. In addition, four LEDs are engineered into the small applicator head to add additional, point-specific sensory stimulation. The combination of these competing stimuli distracts the brain from the sensation of pain, providing four to eight hours or more of relief.
John Saringer, a Canadian engineer and successful inventor of medical devices, began to study the effects of heat and cold for the temporary treatment of pain in the early 1990s. He observed that there were many devices available on the market designed to provide some kind of sensory stimulation that will distract a person from their pain, or will interrupt the pain pattern. Noting that both heat and cold treatment products have been proven to be very effective sensory stimulators, he observed that "contrast therapy", or the sequential application of heat and cold, was proven to be more effective than heat or cold alone.
John Saringer's contribution to this field of investigation was the enhanced pain relief control that came from the "concurrent" application of heat and cold.
For more information, and/or to purchase ICE-O-therm, please visit www.iceotherm.com .
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