Therapies... - Hydrotherapy - Summary

Due to the contrasts in circulation and metabolism that can be created with different water temperatures and the duration they are applied, hydrotherapy often employs specific times intervals of how long one temperature is applied to which part of the body and what alteration of temperature should follow one another. The above information is summarized below.

• When warm or hot applications are applied to tissues, the muscles relax and blood vessels dilate, allowing more blood to reach other tissues. Unless this is followed by a cold application, the tissue may become congested after 3 to 5 minutes, which is not ideal. For this reason, a cold application almost always follows a hot one in hydrotherapy treatments.
• When a short cold application is applied, it instantly contracts the local blood vessels. This has the effect of decongesting tissues and it is very quickly followed by a reaction in which blood vessels widen again and tissues are flushed with refresh, oxygen-rich blood. This is particularly desirable at the end of a short hot application where congestion is beginning.
• Alternate hot and cold applications produce circulatory interchange and improved drainage and oxygen supply to the tissues, whether these are muscles, skin, or organs.
• An important rule in hydrotherapy is that there should almost always be a short cold application, or immersion, after a hot one, and even better if there is one before it as well. Alternating opposite temperatures activates the peripheral tissues to work as a pump through expansion and contraction.
• Warm/neutral application has the general effect of relaxing the nervous system (NS). It produces little to minimal stimulus for the NS to respond to and activates the sleep mode, which allows the NS to "shut down". Warm/neutral temperatures are usually performed in baths for longer duration from 20 minutes to several hours.
• Tepid water application cools down the body by drawing heat from the core to the surface. They are used in sponge baths -- either full body or locally -- to help bring down temperature in fevers.