Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. Touch Research Institute. In this review, massage therapy has been shown to have beneficial effects on varying conditions including prenatal depression, preterm infants, full-term infants, autism, skin conditions, pain syndromes including arthritis and fibromyalgia, hypertension, autoimmune conditions including asthma and multiple sclerosis, immune conditions including HIV and breast cancer and aging problems including Parkinson's and dementia.
Although many of the studies have involved comparisons between massage therapy and standard treatment control groups, several have compared different forms of massage e. Swedish versus Thai massage , and different active therapies such as massage versus exercise. Typically, the massage therapy groups have experienced more positive effects than the control or comparison groups. This may relate to the massage therapy providing more stimulation of pressure receptors, in turn enhancing vagal activity and reducing Cortisol levels.
Some of the researchers have assessed physical, physiological and biochemical effects, although most have relied exclusively on self-report measures. Despite these methodological problems and the dearth of research from the U. Since a rather extensive massage therapy research review by Field was published in , a significant literature has amassed on massage therapy effects on a variety of conditions that are reviewed here [ 1 ].
Empirical studies, systematic reviews and meta-analyses on massage therapy effects were found on a Pubmed search for the years The studies were evaluated for treatment integrity, sample size and reliability of measures. Of the studies that were initially selected for review, 79 were excluded because the entire article could not be located or the full paper was in a foreign language or the research failed to meet the criteria of being an empirical study single-arm, randomized controlled waitlist or treatment comparison , a systematic review or a meta-analysis.
Qualitative studies, case studies and small sample size studies were excluded. The final selection included 9 single-arm studies, 48 randomized controlled trials, 3 systematic reviews and 5 meta-analyses see tables. These were focused on a variety of conditions including in vitro fertilization, prematurity, full-term newborns, autism, skin conditions including burn scars and surgical sores, pain syndromes including fibromyalgia and arthritis, blood pressure and hypertension, autoimmune conditions including asthma and multiple sclerosis, immune disorders including HIV and breast cancer and aging problems including menopause, Parkinson's and dementia.
