Monitoring of whole body cryotherapy effects by thermal imaging: preliminary report.

In whole body cryotherapy the whole human body is exposed to low temperature below -100 degrees C in a special room called cryogenic chamber for a very short period of time (2-3 minutes). The impact of cold can cause many different biochemical and physiological reactions of the organism. The skin temperature response due to whole body cryotherapy was studied by means of infrared measurements. The thermograms of chosen body parts of patients suffering from low back pain were performed before and after whole body cooling on the 1(st), 5(th) and the last (10(th)) day of medical treatment. Infrared imaging performed after cold impact owing to the enhancement of the skin temperature profile may reveal a slight decrease of the inflammatory states as a result of the 10 sessions of cryotherapy.