ADJUSTABLE CRYOTHERAPY BELTThis invention relates to an adjustable cryotherapy belt.
Cryotherapy is used as part of the treatment of soft-tissue injuries as a way of assisting the body' s natural healing processes to resolve those injuries. Cryotherapy is the application of cold, or heat (or an alternating hot/cold application). One method of applying the heat or cold is to use manufactured plastic packs which contain a gel which is malleable at temperatures below 0 C and hence can be moulded around the injured area, if required. The normal application requires a thin cloth to be placed between the gel-pack and the skin surface, to avoid burning (with heat) or frostbite/frost burns (with cold). Placing pressure on the gel-pack allows the heat or cold to transfer to the body quicker. This is normally done through the use of a bandage, wrapped around the gelpack and injured limb.
The normal application of hot or cold gel-packs requires some manual dexterity to correlate the gelpack, the thin cloth and the bandage. This is especially difficult for someone who is injured and even more so if the injured body part is one of the upper limbs or the person is handicapped.
This invention allows easy application of the gel-pack to virtually any injured body part. The gelpack is placed in a cloth pocket which can be either part of the belt or, in another embodiment of the invention, can be attached to the belt by the use of velcro hook and loop material. The belt is then wrapped around the body part, with the pocket containing the gel-pack placed on the injured area.
The belt attaches to itself by the use of velcro hook and loop. The belt is constructed in such a way as to allow it to be wrapped around any size of body part, from 10cm up to 120cm. The width of the belt can be adjusted in manufacture to allow for a different size of gel-pack to be inserted. The elastic part of the belt allows additional compression to be applied through the belt, thus improving the efficiency ofthe gel-pack. It also allows the belt to be wrapped around joints, replacing the need to create specific designs for particular parts of the body. In this sense it has a multi-functional application, not found in other cryotherapy systems.
Specification page 1 of2 The two embodiments of the invention are now described by way of example with reference to the accompanying drawings in which:Figure 1 shows in plan the design of the blet;Figure 2 shows in perspective, the belt with pocket as part of the belt;Figure 3 shows in perspective, the belt with detachable/attachable gel-pack pocket;Figure 4 shows the method of application of the belt around a joint (in this example, the elbow);Figure 5 shows the application of the belt around a limb (in this example, the thigh);Figure 6 shows the application of the belt around the chest; andFigure 7 shows the application of the belt around the wrist.
Referring to the drawings, the belt comprises a non-elastic material part (1) with either a pocket included (2) or attachable (3), and an elastic extension (4) which allows the belt to be secured by the use of velcro hook (5) and loop (6). The gel-pack (not shown, and purchased from other sources) is placed in the pocket.
To apply the belt, follow the procedures shown in figure 3, which shows how the belt might be applied to the elbow joint. If the injury is such that the gel-pack is placed perpendicular to the line ofthe limb, then the pocket should be attached as in figure 4 and the belt wrapped around the limb.
Figure 5 shows the belt applied around the chest, where the overlap is minimal, and figure 6 shows how the belt might be applied around the wrist, where the non-elastic part of the belt is wrapped around itself (7) before the elastic part is tightened to apply compression.Specification page 2 of 2