Like this article?
Get your free daily medical news from Physician's First Watch.
Massage vs. Simple Touch in Patients with Advanced Cancer
Although massage appears more effective than simple touch for immediately improving pain and mood among patients with advanced cancer, the two treatments have similar longer-term effects, reports the Annals of Internal Medicine.
Some 380 patients with advanced cancer were randomized to undergo six 30-minute sessions of therapeutic massage or simple touch over a 2-week period.
Both groups saw significant improvements in pain and mood immediately after treatment, although benefits were greater with massage than with simple touch. Both groups also achieved sustained improvements in pain (as measured weekly for 3 weeks), but outcomes were similar with massage and simple touch.
"These findings support offering massage for immediate symptom relief," the authors write. They add: "Given the lack of sustained effects and the observed improvements in both study groups, the potential benefits of attention and simple touch should also be considered in this patient population."
LINK(S):
Annals of Internal Medicine article (Free abstract; full text requires subscription)
Published in Physician's First Watch September 16, 2008
Your Remark:
To ensure that your Reader Remark is not formatted as one long paragraph, precede new paragraphs with either a blank line or an indentation.