Research  

Massage & Complementary Therapies::


 

Fascia Research :

 

Tendinitis (tendinopathy):

 

 

Nutrition & Juicing:

 

 

 

Mindfulness:

 

Pain:

 

 

Running Technique :

 

 

Exercise Sciences :

 

 

Biofeedback/neurofeedback:

 

Cancer Checks :


Todays Massage research

(Taken from:
Rattray, F., and Ludwig, L. Clinical Massage Therapy. Talus Inc. 2000. Pp8-9
)

There seems to be a tendency today for some therapists to lament that there are no scientific studies to to prove the effects of massage therapy, that the evidence is all empirical. Studies do exist, in English as well as other languages. For example, Yate's A Physician's Guide to Theraputic Massage is based on over 200 articles in scientific, medical and health-sciences literature published from 1885 to 1987 on the effects of massage therapy (Yates, 1990).

More recently Dr Tiffany Field of the Touch Research Institute at the Miami School of Medicine in Florida is researching the role of touch in health development and the treatment of disease. She has published papers in leading pediatric and psychiatry journals.

Examples of Field's current research include a study which examined the effect of 45 minutes of daily massage on premature babies. It reported that these babies had a 47 percent weight gain compared to premature babies who received Coventional treatment and who were not "unnecessarily handled" during hospital care. Another study, on the effects of massage on children with diabetes, revealed that 20 minutes of nightly massage for 30 days improved the subjects' blood glucose levels (Field et al, 1997b).

Perhaps we, as massage therapists, have unrealistic expectations of massage and research in this field. For example, one issue that is questioned (often by the insurance industry) is the long term effectiveness of massage; yet other common forms of treatment are not necessarily questioned, such as medication and the need for ongoing doses . Field notes that "we've been very concerned about convincing physicians sitting on committees about this and they don't care about the long term effects of massage. They want to know what happens immediately. Physicians know that if you want a drug to work, you have to keep taking it. They could be criticised if they said, "How long... are the effects of the drug?" Its dose dependant typically. Their reasoning is: would you expect if you stopped massaging someone that the positive effects of massage are going to go on any longer than if you stopped someone on a drug. They may have a point. It may be that you need to have a daily or weekly dose in order for the effects to persist. We do massage assessments on day one and then on day 30. If we look at the base line on day one versus base line on day 30, the latter is better, suggesting an incremental effect of the month of therapy" (Knaster, 1994).

Some concerns with studies that do exist on the effectiveness of massage therapy techniques are that they often neglect to mention which specific techniques are used and the pressure, rate, number of repetitions and areas of the body to which the techniques are applied. This makes the studies difficult to reproduce. The terminology used to describe the techniques may vary. Studies also show a lack of consistency in approach so comparisons of techniques are difficult to make (Zadai, 1992).

All this focus on research raises a concern for those therapists who feel that massage therapy is, intuitive, that all its effects can not be measured by scientific methods, nor should they be, and that massage is becoming too medicalised.

Whether we like it or not, the public are seeing massage therapy not only as an alternative to traditional or allopathic medicine, but also as a respected therapeutic approach in its own right. As the public uses massage more frequently,, and if we want to attract more people to using massage, the profession finds itself asked more frequently to "prove that massage works in medical terms".

Perhaps a compromise is to use both empirical and scientific methods, combining qualitative and quantitative research, because the positive effects of massage therapy are a combination of physiological and psychological factors.

References:

Field, T., Kuhn, C., LaGreca, A., Shaw, K., and Schanberg, S. Adherance and glucose levels improved after giving massage therapy to children with diabetes. Touchpoints. 1997. Vol.3, No. 4:2.

Knaster, Mirka. Researching Massage as Real Therapy. Massage Therapy Journal. 1994.Vol 33, No 3:56-112

Zadai, C. Pulmonary management in physical therapy. New york: Churchill livingstone.

 

Where's the evidence?
By RESTORE


There may be little scientific evidence to support the idea that Sports Massage, or even stretching can help to prevent injury in athletes. However the empirical evidence is overwhelming. Try telling a professional athlete not to stretch or that they can't have their regular massage! Unfortunately, as detailed in the article above, massage by it's very nature proves extremely difficult to control for, or measure objectively, so the 'evidence based' research studies will likely always be limited. We simply can't control the all the many variables such as depth, pressure, speed, individual variance etc... as is required in truly objective and generalisable scientific method.

With research focused on much more serious matters it's also an area of little interest to the sort of research physiologist's who would have the means to conduct large scale studies. Unfortunately the benefits of massage are more likely to be tested as part of a students' undergraduate dissertation than they are to be put through fully funded and large clinical trials.

Additionally, the term 'massage' covers such a wide range of techniques that can be infinitely interwoven and individualised for every person and situation. So its little wonder that there is a relatively poor evidence base.

Research studies into very specific massage techniques are being conducted however. Fascia research is an extremely exciting area of study, relevant to both clinical massage therapy and to furthering our general knowledge and understanding of the sensory, tensegrity and structural aspects of the human body. Myofascial release is fast becoming a favorite technique at RESTORE thanks to its efficiency and effectiveness over a very short space of time. The research is backing up its effectiveness and relevance more and more.

With such a huge supporting network of amateur and professional athletes and lay people who swear by their regular massage combined with the fact that this discipline has endured since ancient times one must operate as an evidence informed practitioner, rather than evidence based. Any advances in the research are keenly anticipated and welcomed.

At RESTORE we follow the research with great interest, especially within the field of fascial release. While we enjoy the science behind our treatment, and see it as an essential component we will always combine this with an intuitive sense of what the body and the individual needs from the treatment. This puts us in a great position. We are able to dip into the research and keep our eyes peeled for anything else that may be of benefit to our patients that may, as yet, be just one or two steps ahead of the research...

Please enjoy our our research library where we regularly place articles that we have found interesting and relevant.

 

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