Talks of massage therapy as a form of complimentary medicine.
Massage therapy is a very ancient form of complimentary and alternative medicine. It continues to be extremely popular today and massage therapists are in high demand. Massage can be dated all the way back to 2,700 B.C. where ancient Eastern Chinese cultures used it to heal a variety of ailments from labor pain to paralysis (Massage Techniques, n.d). It is also seen in ancient Greek and Roman cultures used to help nerve pain. Soldiers who fought in WWI were treated with massage therapy for nerve damage and to help with shell shock in hospitals in the 1930's (Massage Techniques, n.d). In western culture the most common form of massage is the Swedish massage. The Swedish massage borrows some techniques from traditional China, Egypt, Greece, and Rome massage techniques. Massage is even sometimes considered part of conventional medicine in the United States (Massage Therapy Benefits, Types, Risks, Facts, and Information, n.d). Massage is used for many reasons including medical and its use and acceptance is growing daily.
People use massage therapy for a variety of reasons. These include low-back pain, stress relief, cancer pain and anxiety, to boost the immune system, and even to drain the lymph fluids. Recent research has shown that massage can increase the immune system's cytotoxic capacity and decrease the number of T-cells (Ironson, 1996). Also recent research shows that massage therapy can reduce post-traumatic headaches better even than cold pack treatments. A pilot study in 2000 conducted at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles found that massage, as part of hospital based surgery treatment, reduces pain and muscle spasms in patients who have undergone heart bypass surgery or have multiple incisions (Griffith, 2003). The American Journal of Public Health in an October 2002 issue publishes reports that new research showed muscle-specific massage therapy is effective for reducing the incidence of chronic tension headaches.(Griffith, 2003). The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) suggest in their Comprehensive Accreditation Manual for Hospitals, August 2000 that massage as a non-pharmacological therapy can be used successfully in pain management (Griffith, 2003).
In a 2002 national survey on America's use of CAM and why they would choose massage therapy these were some of the results:
60 percent believed that massage combined with conventional medicine would help both therapies
44 percent thought massage would be “interesting” to try
34 percent believed that conventional medical treatments wouldn't help
33 percent said that massage was suggested to them by a conventional medical professional
13 percent said that they thought that conventional medicine was too expensive (Massage Therapy Benefits, Types, Risks, Facts, and Information, n.d).
Some potential times that you should consult your doctor before having any massage therapy are with a history of a deep vein thrombosis, if you have a bleeding disorder, weakened bones, a fever, or any open wound or ulcer. Some potential side effects of massage therapy are temporary pain or discomfort, bruising, and swelling (Massage Therapy Benefits, Types, Risks, Facts, and Information, n.d). There appear to be few, if any risks to massaging therapy if it is used correctly by a trained massage professional.
With all of the proven benefits of massage therapy many health professionals and conventional medicine groups are embracing massage therapy. However it can pose a challenge to physicians and other medical professionals to find and recommend qualified massage therapists. There are so many massage specialties and many often just focus on relaxation massage. Only 31 states and Washington D.C. regulate the massage profession so finding highly trained and qualified individuals can often be complicated (Griffith, 2003). There should be a greater focus on regulating and qualifying this highly useful form of complimentary and alternative medicine. Even with these challenges and setbacks massage therapy continues to grow in use and acceptance.
