Massage Therapy 2017 Review

A review paper is when the researcher / editor aggregates data from several completed and published studies and then creates a report that tallies the commonalities between them.

This one, written by Tiffany Fields who has been a MT researcher since the early 1980s, is fairly comprehensive and informational. One of the biggest problems with Massage Therapy research is that most studies conducted have reported that MT is helpful, but not why or how.

It's encouraging to see that this review reported that MT was useful / beneficial in a plethora of situations:

• Infants - improved weight gain, bonding; reduced jaundice
• Autism - improved sleep and oxytocin
• Pre/Post partum - reduced depression in mothers undergoing IVF
• Scars - reduced pain and improved healing
• Pain Syndromes - reduced pain and increased functioning in several syndromes
• Blood Pressure - lower values and reduced cortisol

In all reported areas there was some measure of positivity. The limitations of MT research is that they are not getting into the more meaningful how / why does MT positively affect these populations. Learning about this is important because this information would be used to create best practices and evidence-based treatment plans.

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