Cooling the Foot to Prevent Diabetic Foot Wound

admin · Mar 19, 2005

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Cooling the Foot to Prevent Diabetic Foot Wounds
A Proof-of-Concept Trial
David G. Armstrong et al

The etiology of neuropathic diabetic foot wounds can be summarized by the following formula: pressure [font=arial,helvetica]x[/font] cycles of repetitive stress = ulceration. The final pathway to ulceration consists of an inflammatory response, leading to tissue breakdown. Mitigation of this response might reduce the risk of ulceration. This proof-of-concept trial evaluates whether simple cooling of the foot can safely reduce the time to thermal equilibrium after activity. After a 15-min brisk walk, the six nondiabetic volunteers enrolled were randomly assigned to receive either air cooling or a 10-min 55°F cool water bath followed by air cooling. The process was then repeated with the intervention reversed, allowing subjects to serve as their own controls. There was a rise in mean ± SD skin temperature after 15 min of activity versus preactivity levels (87.8° ± 3.9° versus 79° ± 2.2° F; P = .0001). Water cooling immediately brought the foot to a point cooler than preactivity levels for all subjects, whereas air cooling required an average of nearly 17 min to do so. Ten minutes of cooling required a mean ± SD of 26.2 ± 5.9 min to warm to preactivity levels. No adverse effects resulted from the intervention. We conclude that cooling the foot may be a safe and effective method of reducing inflammation and may serve as a prophylactic or interventional tool to reduce skin breakdown risk
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J Am Podiatr Med Assoc 2005;95 103-107
http://www.japmaonline.org/cgi/content/abstract/95/2/103

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