The use of ICE in Injury Treatment

The application of ice to any acute soft tissue injury is accepted as good and successful clinical practice. However despite its widespread use there is still controversy over the best protocol for its use; how long to apply the ice and how often are just two of the many variables.

Researchers in Northern Ireland have conducted a controlled experiment that compares two different icing protocols and reported their findings in the “British Journal of Sports Medicine”. Treatment groups were spilt into two group and used the following protocols for acute ankle sprains:

a) Continuous icing: 20 mins of continuous ice treatment every 2 hours for 72 hours

b) Intermittent icing:10 mins of icing, 10 mins off, 10 mins icing every 2 hours for 72 hours

The study found that there was no significant difference in terms of function, swelling or pain at rest between the two protocols. However, using the intermittent icing protocol on a mild/moderate ankle sprain significantly reduced the level of subjective pain on activity one week after injury, compared to the continuous icing protocol.