Studies
funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH)
have found massage beneficial in improving
weight gain in HIV-exposed infants and
facilitating recovery in patients who
underwent abdominal surgery. At the
University of Miami School of Medicine's
Touch Research Institute, researchers have
found that massage is helpful in decreasing
blood pressure in people with hypertension,
alleviating pain in migraine sufferers and
improving alertness and performance in office
workers.
An increasing number of research studies show
massage reduces heart rate, lowers blood
pressure, increases blood circulation and
lymph flow, relaxes muscles, improves range
of motion, and increases endorphins
(enhancing medical treatment). Although
therapeutic massage does not increase muscle
strength, it can stimulate weak, inactive
muscles and, thus, partially compensate for
the lack of exercise and inactivity resulting
from illness or injury. It also can hasten
and lead to a more complete recovery from
exercise or injury.
Research has verified that:
Office
workers massaged regularly were more alert,
performed better and were less stressed than
those who weren't massaged.
Massage
therapy decreased the effects of anxiety,
tension, depression, pain, and itching in
burn patients.
Abdominal
surgery patients recovered more quickly after
massage.
Premature infants who were massaged gained
more weight and fared better than those who
weren't.
Autistic
children showed less erratic behavior after
massage therapy.
According
AMTA, massage helps both physically
and mentally.
"Often times people are stressed in our
culture. Stress-related disorders make up
between 80-and-90 percent of the ailments
that bring people to family-practice
physicians. What they require is someone to
listen, someone to touch them, someone to
care. That does not exist in modern medicine.
One of the complaints heard frequently is
that physicians don't touch their patients
any more. Touch just isn't there. Years ago
massage was a big part of nursing. There was
so much care, so much touch, so much goodness
conveyed through massage. Now nurses for the
most part are as busy as physicians. They're
writing charts, dealing with insurance notes,
they're doing procedures and often there is
no room for massage any more.
I believe massage therapy is absolutely key
in the healing process not only in the
hospital environment but because it relieves
stress, it is obviously foundational in the
healing process any time and anywhere."
Joan Borysenko - Massage Journal Interview,
Fall 1999