Partial Body Cryotherapy in the context of medicine, health and sports: studies on practical applications

The purpose of this study was to examine isometric strength, pain threshold and perceived health responses to partial-body cryotherapy (PBC, 150s at a temperature range between -130 and -160°C). Three different populations of subjects were enrolled for this study: 200 healthy people were exposed to a single PBC session in order to assess the maximum handgrip isometric strength responses by means of an hydraulic dynamometer, 30 healthy female carried out a cycle of ten consecutive PBC sessions for evaluate the objective pain threshold in the low back region via the painpressure test and finally 28 female fibromyalgic patients were exposed to repeated exposure to PBC (ten sessions in a row) with the purpose to examine perceived health and quality of life responses utilizing two self-reported questionnaires. A single session of PBC lead to improve, immediately after the very-low temperatures exposure, muscle isometric strength in healthy people both in females and in males. Repeated exposures to PBC in healthy women was shown to be efficient in decreasing very rapidly the skin temperature in the lowback region, and thus to induce a significant increase in pain-pressure threshold values. The same protocol of repeated exposures to PBC induced significant improvements for all indexes and sub-indexes of the perceived health and quality of life questionnaires assessed in fibromyalgic patients.