BTEC students from Duchy College were welcomed to Marjon University for a teaching session on the Principles of Rehabilitation, by the Sports Therapy and Rehabilitation team. 6 students took part in the session, which covered the basic rehabilitation principles, treatments and rehabilitation exercises that could be used within a treatment plan.
The first treatment the students experienced was ICE. After an acute injury, the aim of treatment is to reduce pain, muscle spasm (should it have occurred) and swelling. Ice helps to alleviate these symptoms (Nadler et al., 2004) and when combined with compression further helps the reduction in swelling. Students experienced both the GameReady machine and the Squid machine.
The second treatment modality was the use of Kinesiology Tape (K-tape). K-tape has the potential to alleviate pain (Bassett et al., 2010) and improve healing in soft tissues, by lifting the skin and increasing blood flow. It is a modality that can be used during any stage of rehabilitation. A basic lateral ankle sprain tape was used and the students were able to practice the application on each other and for a first attempt, they all did a very good job! They tested balance on each leg and compared the non-taped to the taped and found there was a difference in balance and how it felt.