Back pain is one of the most common reasons that Americans use complementary and alternative medical (CAM) therapies. For example, in 1997, one-third of U.S. adults with low back pain visited a CAM provider—usually chiropractors, massage therapists, and acupuncturists—for their problem. According to a recent study supported in part by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (HS09351), massage effectively relieved persistent back pain and/or disability, but Traditional Chinese Medical (TCM) acupuncture by licensed acupuncturists was relatively ineffective.
Back pain is one of the most common health problems facing Americans and is frequently the cause for visits to a physician, says Cherkin, acting director of the Group Health Center for Health Studies in Seattle. According to the National Institutes of Health, 70-85% of people experience back pain at some time in their lives, and it is the most frequent cause of limited activity in people under the age of 45.
"Millions of people use massage therapeutically and there's not a lot of hard evidence that it works," Michael Hirt, MD, tells WebMD. "This is one of the few well-conducted studies that shows there's some significant benefit, and the benefit might be higher than for some other alternative therapies that we consider to be effective for pain, like acupuncture. ... Three out of four people who had massage therapy in this study showed benefit, and that's legions above the kind of benefits we see with physical therapy or medications."
Hirt is medical director of the Center for Integrative Medicine at the Encino-Tarzana Regional Medical Center in Los Angeles.
In his study, Cherkin randomly divided 262 people with persistent back pain into one of three groups. All the people were between 20 and 70 years old.
The first group was given acupuncture, the second self-care materials, and the third therapeutic massage. None of the patients had the kind of back pain associated with a serious disease, like a tumor, infection, or disk problem, and many were also taking medication for their back pain but were not satisfied with the pain control it offered.
"There's a whole variety of massage techniques," says Cherkin. "We studied those techniques that are most commonly taught in massage schools. That includes techniques like Swedish, deep tissue, and trigger point techniques."
After 10 weeks, the participants rated their back pain symptoms and the disability it caused. Those given massage therapy reported more improvement in their pain and disability compared to those treated with acupuncture or self-care. After one year of therapy, those given massage reported better results than the acupuncture group and similar results to the self-care group. Overall, those given massage used the least medication and had the lowest costs for subsequent care.
Source: Web MD
