A good old-fashioned back rub might be the best treatment for chronic lower back pain, at least in the short-term. A new study from Seattle’s Group Health Institute found that after ten weeks, patients who got regular massages used less pain medication and spent less time in bed than back-pain sufferers who received traditional medical care without massage therapy, as reported by Reuters.
The study, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, surveyed 401 people who were randomly assigned to one of three treatment regimens: conventional care with no massage therapy, a plan that utilized a relaxation or Swedish massage technique, and a plan that utilized a so-called structural massage designed to target tissue and joint structures.
Ten weeks in, the groups who received weekly massages had seen significantly more improvement than the control group.
"If we look at patients who seemed to have some substantial improvement, that was about two-thirds in the massage group compared to about one-third among patients getting usual care," said Dr. Richard A. Deyo of the Oregon Health and Science University, one of the researchers who worked on the study, as quoted by Reuters.
