In 1997, the cover story of Life

Magazine was “The Healing

Power of Touch.” The article

stated that massage not only feels

good but it also reduces stress,

eases back pain, fights anorexia,

lifts depression, and saves lives.

Those bold statements were supported

with numerous case studies.

Now in the year 2011, we

have even more clinical evidence

and find massage therapy is

covered by many major insurance

plans.

What does massage therapy

actually do? How long has it been around? And where are the

new areas of treatment?

The first written records of massage - the word comes from

an Arabic word meaning stroke - date back 3,000 years to

China. Hippocrates, the Greek physician known as the father of

modern medicine, was a 4th century B.C. proselytizer for massage.

“The physician must be experienced in many things, but

most assuredly in rubbing,” he wrote. In Eastern Medicine it has

been an intricate part of protocol in different modalities. Now in

the West, massage therapy has been pushed to the forefront.

The benefits and usage of massage in Pre and Post Surgical

situations have been studied at the Mayo clinic. Not only does

it reduce pre-surgical stress but it can boost the immune system.

Post-surgically it aids in speeding recovery and reduces adhesion

caused by surgery. Once thought of as taboo for the cancer

patient, it is now prescribed in certain protocols. Conventional

western doctors have become some of the biggest advocates for

massage. “All of our surgery patients are offered the treatment…I

call it service with a smile… and it’s a mandatory weekly prescription

I give myself,” says Mehmet C. Oz, MD, director of the

Cardiovascular Institute.

In professional sports the work of the trainer has always

included some massage therapy. Today most teams have staff

therapists and some athletes have their own personal massage

therapist. The US Olympic team travels with a number of staff

therapists. Two years ago when it was thought Jose Reyes of the

NY Mets would be out for the rest of the season and needed

surgery, he actually returned within a month after receiving daily

massage therapy.

Massage is not just for adults. The Touch Research Institute

has been the lead in studying and application of massage for

premature infants. It has been found that touch not only helps

speed development in the infant but also induces weight gain.

Most ICU maturity wards now have nurses applying massage

therapy in their daily care of infants.

The list of conditions once thought of as no touch zones

which now includes massage as protocol continues to grow

larger. Alzheimers disease, fibromyalgia, arthritis, Lyme disease,

and burn rehabilitation are all areas now including or exploring

Evidence Supports Expanding Role of Massage Therapy

massage therapy as a complementary

or alternative technique

to conventional protocol. Now

that stress has been scientifically

linked to many immune disorders

as well as cancer, the role of

massage in prevention or management

of stress will continue to

grow as it is more accepted and

increasingly prescribed by physicians

for treatment (and covered

by major insurance companies,

including Health Savings Accounts

and flexible spending

account plans).

Massage’s role has changed significantly since the Life

Magazine article of 1997. From an article in the New York

Times, November 2010: “Does a good massage do more than

just relax your muscles?" To find out, researchers at Cedars-Sinai

Medical Center in Los Angeles recruited 53 healthy adults and

randomly assigned 29 of them to a 45-minute session of deeptissue

Swedish massage and the other 24 to a session of light

massage.

All of the subjects were fitted with intravenous catheters so

blood samples could be taken immediately before the massage

and up to an hour afterward.

To their surprise, the researchers, sponsored by the National

Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, a division

of the National Institutes of Health, found that a single session of

massage caused biological changes.

Volunteers who received Swedish massage experienced

significant decreases in levels of the stress hormone cortisol in

blood and saliva, and in arginine vasopressin, a hormone that

can lead to increases in cortisol. They also had increases in the

number of lymphocytes, white blood cells that are part of the

immune system.

Volunteers who had the light massage experienced greater

increases in oxytocin, a hormone associated with contentment,

than the Swedish massage group, and bigger decreases in adrenal

corticotropin hormone, which stimulates the adrenal glands

to release cortisol.”

Massage therapy is far from a new technique, but its expanding

acceptance thanks to growing scientific support for its

benefits should insure this effective, non-invasive modality is

here to stay and will help many more people.

Sources for this article come from the NIH, NCCAM, Life publishing,

NY Times publishing, and the AMTA. For more information

and to find a massage therapist in Fairfield County near your

location, go to www.AMTA.com

Rob Young is a Licensed Massage Therapist in CT and NY and operates

Move2Wellness Massage and Wellness Center in Ridgefield

CT. www.move2wellness.com or 203-403-2522.