Surgery is the part everyone prepares for. The week afterward, alone at home in a splint, are harder to plan for, and recovery quietly stalls there. A new study from UConn Health looked at exactly that window.
Cold therapy is a standard part of surgery recovery. A standard instruction only works if a patient can follow it, day after day, while recovering. UConn Health measured what happens when that instruction is easy enough to stick with, and what happens when it is not. The difference showed up in nearly every outcome researchers tracked.
Surgery Does not End the Care Plan
The real work starts after the patient leaves the operating room.
Discharge instructions after joint surgery are simple. Apply cold to the operative joint for about 20 minutes at a time, at least five times a day, through the first one to two weeks. Filling an ice bag and repeating that every few hours while tired, uncomfortable, and on pain medication asks a lot of a patient who just had surgery.
Icing consistently is harder than it sounds, and it tends to stop within the first few days, right when swelling is at its highest. UConn Health set out to measure how often that happens, and what changes when it does not.
What UConn Found When They Studied This
Ninety-two patients, two surgeries, one clear result.
Researchers followed 92 patients recovering from two common hand surgeries, CMC arthroplasty, a thumb joint replacement, and distal radius ORIF, where a broken wrist is set with a plate and screws. Some patients used the NICE1 cold and compression therapy system. Others used ice packs instead, on the same schedule. Two weeks later, patients were surveyed around their experience, comfort level, and pain management. The study appears in the journal HAND, and the full paper is on PubMed.
Patients who used the NICE1 after CMC arthroplasty rated it 9.56 out of 10 for how much it relieved their pain, compared with 3.42 out of 10 among patients using ice packs. Patients recovering from distal radius surgery who used the NICE1 reported 9.68 out of 10 satisfaction with pain relief and 9.92 out of 10 confidence using the device. Function improved too. At six weeks, distal radius patients using the NICE1 reported a bigger improvement in how normal their hand felt, based on a simple survey researchers call the SANE score.
Patient-Rated Pain Relief, CMC Arthroplasty
9.56 vs. 3.42
Out of 10, NICE1 compared with traditional ice packs
Patients who used the NICE1 rated its effect on their postoperative pain nearly three times higher than patients managing with ice packs after the same procedure.
People also kept going far longer with the NICE1 than with ice packs, the clearest split in the whole study.
Patients using the NICE1 also used it more often within a given day. Every distal radius patient with a NICE1 used it three or more times a day, and most used it seven or more times. In the ice pack group, only one patient reached three sessions a day, and none reached seven.
Why Sticking with It Made the Difference
The result follows the behavior.
Pain relief, confidence, and hand function all pointed to the same important part of recovery, adherence. Cold therapy can only support recovery when patients actually use it. In the UConn study, patients using NICE continued therapy more consistently and for longer than patients using traditional ice, while also reporting strong pain relief and confidence with the device. The takeaway is simple. Making recovery easier to follow may help patients stay engaged with their prescribed care after they leave the operating room.
Why NICE1 Was Designed for This Exact Problem
Built around the obstacle to using it consistently.
The body already knows how to heal after joint surgery. The role of postoperative care is to support that process by helping manage pain and swelling along the way. Cold and compression therapy can play a role, but consistent use matters. NICE1 was designed to make repeated therapy easier, delivering controlled cold and compression without the need to refill or repack ice. In the UConn protocol, the wrap was placed directly against the skin beneath the splint, delivering cold therapy to the surgical area.
Overnight Coverage Without Interruption
Runs continuously through the night with no refills and no repositioning.
Hand and wrist pain peaks overnight, and a splinted arm is difficult to reposition once a patient is asleep. An ice pack warms within about 20 minutes and then asks someone to get up, repack it, and fit it against an irregular splint in the dark. The NICE1 runs continuously, so overnight cold and compression happens without waking the patient or handing the job to a caregiver. In the UConn cohorts, 32 of 36 CMC patients and 19 of 25 distal radius patients reported using the device both day and night.
What This Study Can and Cannot Tell Us
Read the numbers honestly, the strong ones and the uncertain ones.
Opioids remain an important part of pain management after surgery, particularly following significant trauma. In the UConn study, CMC arthroplasty patients using NICE1 took an average of 8.51 oxycodone tablets by their first follow up visit, compared with 13.38 tablets among patients using traditional ice. While the difference, in this study, was not statistically significant, the direction of the findings supports further study into how consistent cold therapy may complement standard pain management after surgery.
Read the Opioid Data Carefully
Patients felt a difference. The tablet counts do not confirm it.
Patients rated how much NICE1 helped cut their narcotic use at 9.41 out of 10 after CMC arthroplasty and 9.52 out of 10 after distal radius ORIF.
What patients felt and what they actually took are two different things, and the gap in tablets taken was small enough that it could be chance.
Cold therapy is a companion to the medication plan your surgeon sets.
When cold therapy is easy enough to use consistently, patients use it consistently, and the outcomes that depend on it improve. If you are preparing for joint surgery, NICE1’s procedure-specific recovery guides cover what to expect week by week.
Ready to Recover
Cold therapy works best when it is easy to keep using.
If a device like the NICE1 could fit your recovery plan, ask your surgeon and reserve at least 7 days before surgery so it is ready when you get home. Call 888.815.9907 with questions.
Rent a NICE1This content is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Recovery timelines and protocols vary by procedure type, surgical approach, and individual patient factors. Always follow the specific post-operative instructions provided by your surgical care team.
This paper was not funded by NICE Recovery. The UConn Health study was conducted with separate financial support for the research, authorship or publication, and the authors reported no potential conflicts of interest. Results shown are from the distal radius ORIF cohort of the prospective study. See the full publication for study design, population, comparator and limitations. For U.S. NICE customers only.