Affiliations: [a] Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Korea University Anam Hospital, Seoul, Korea | [b] Biomedial Research Center, Korea University Anam Hospital, Seoul, Korea
Correspondence:
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Corresponding author: Nack-Hwan Kim, Biomedial Research Center, Korea University Anam Hospital, Inchon-Ro 73, Seongbuk-Gu, Seoul 02841, Korea. Tel.: +82 02 920 6471; Fax: +82 02 929 9951; E-mail: nackhwan@gmail.com.
Abstract: BACKGROUND: Cold pack therapy is not used frequently in clinics in spite of its effectiveness in clinical reports. Low compliance due to cold intolerance may be a disturbance factor that hinders patients from using the modality. OBJECTIVE: To demonstrate the improved compliance and clinical efficacy as new devised cold modality with a different composition is applied to target different therapeutic temperature range in tension-type headache (TTH) patients. METHODS: A randomized, controlled, comparative trial involving 53 patients with tension-type headache was conducted. A new cold modality that targets upper normal therapeutic temperature range was devised and applied to one group (n= 27) and ice pack was applied to the other group (n= 26). RESULTS: After application of two modalities for 4 weeks, the amount of analgesics intake, modality use per week, and Likert survey of cold intolerance were significantly different between the two groups. CONCLUSIONS: Rather than focusing on lowering the skin temperature indefinitely, optimizing tolerability by targeting the temperature at the upper therapeutic range could be more effective in cold modality application.
