Cold therapy or cryotherapy has long been used to relieve pain and inflammatory symptoms.Nowadays, whole-body cryotherapy - an extreme cold therapy- which lasts 1-3 min, and given in acold room in which the air temperature maybe -110°C or less is also used.Important series of data have been collected in the context of injury prevention, recovery after injuriesor surgery, recovery improvement after physical exercise in athletes and patients.Cryotherapy/cryostimulation is also used as a complementary treatment in different kinds of chronicdisease patients, in patients having pain and/or inflammatory problems, and with subjects withmobility difficulties. However, there are nowadays several reports expressing the absence of benefitswith the use of cryotherapy/cryostimulation and also safety problems.The purpose of this work is to summarize what is really known on the effects of whole bodycryotherapy/cryostimulation, to present the main physiological mechanisms involved and to suggestpossible developments.
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