Bodemer,N.
Ruggeri,A.
Galesic,M.

Continuous-flow cryotherapy units have been proved to decrease pain, inflammation, swelling, blood loss, and narcotic usage in the postoperative setting. Complications related to cryotherapy are extremely rare (estimated at 0.00225%) but can be devastating. Complications include frostbite, chronic pain, and loss of digits. Caution should be exercised when prescribing continuous-flow cryotherapy units to patients with known risk factors for cold injury. All members involved with care of the patient, including the physician, nursing staff, patient, and patient's family and caregivers, should take an active roll in monitoring the foot for signs and symptoms of cold injury. Continuous-flow cold therapy should be discontinued when capillary refill time is greater than 5 seconds.

Bodemer, N., Ruggeri, A., & Galesic, M. (2013). Why 100 once is worse than 10 times 10: Dread risks versus "continuous" risks. In M. Knauff, M. Pauen, N. Sebanz, & I. Wachsmuth (Eds.), Cooperative minds: Social interaction and group dynamics. Proceedings of the 35th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 1923-1927). Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Society. (Full text)

Publication year	2013
Document type:	In book
Publication status:	Published
External URL:	http://mindmodeling.org/cogsci2013/papers/0356/paper0356.pdf View
Categories:
Keywords:	adultankleankle: surgerycryotherapycryotherapy: adverse effectscryotherapy: methodsfemalefootfoot: surgeryhumansmalemiddle agedpain, postoperativepain, postoperative: therapypodiatrypodiatry: methodspostoperative carepostoperative care: methodsrisk assessmentrisk factors