Treating soft tissue injuries with PEACE and LOVE

Can you treat soft tissue injuries with PEACE and LOVE?

The short answer is yes, but it might not be the peace and love that you are expecting. In this instance, the PEACE and LOVE we are referring to is an acronym developed by the British Journal of Sports Medicine (BJSM) which is used to help treat and manage an acute soft tissue injury.

Immediately after an injury we want to follow PEACE, this stands for Protection, Elevation, Avoiding anti-inflammatories, Compression and Education. Protection refers to reducing or resting from aggravating movements for the first few days after your injury. Elevating your injured limb higher than your heart can help reduce discomfort that can accompany swelling. Avoiding anti-inflammatories allows the tissue healing process to begin, inflammation is an important part of early tissue healing and needs time to take place. Using a compression bandage has been shown to help reduce the discomfort that can accompany swelling, particularly with ankle sprains. Education refers to understanding that your body knows best in the early stages of tissue healing and we need to allow time for these processes to take place and we want to avoid any unnecessary passive treatments which have been shown can be counterproductive in the long term.

And what about LOVE?

After a few days have passed we want to start treating and managing our soft tissue injury with LOVE, this stands for Load, Optimism, Vascularisation and Exercise. Load refers to movement and exercise as much as your symptoms allow. Loading our injury early without exacerbating pain helps promote tissue healing. Evidence shows being optimistic during your recovery leads to better long term outcomes. Vascularisation refers to increasing blood flow to the injured tissues to facilitate healing, but how do we do this? With pain-free cardiovascular activity! This is any activity that increases your breathing and heart rate whilst not aggravating your symptoms. And finally exercise. This helps restore your mobility, function, strength and balance in the early stages of recovery and in the long term there is strong evidence that exercise can prevent injury recurrence, particularly with ankle sprains.

So now you know how to treat the early stages of a soft tissue injury with PEACE and LOVE. If you would like any support during this early stage of injury and/or what to do afterwards, then please do come in and see one of our specialist MSK Physiotherapists who will be able to help you during your recovery.