Massage therapy may help ease chronic back pain in sufferers, Reuters reports.
A 10-week study showed that patients who got weekly massage sessions [either structural massage or relaxation massage (a.k.a. Swedish massage)] used less pain medicine and spent less time in bed than those who didn’t get weekly massages.
For example, about 30 percent of individuals in the massage group had used painkillers in the past week, compared to 40 percent of those getting usual care. Additionally, twice as many in the usual care group had stayed in bed at least one day in the past month.
Some of the effects of the sessions disappeared after half a year, however, and all of the effects were gone after a full year.
"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," Dr. Richard A. Deyo, of the Oregon Health and Science University, told Reuters.
Deyo added that acute back pain can usually be taken care of with OTC painkillers or heat pads. Chronic sufferers, however, usually need to find what works best for them, he said.
"Many of us believe that for truly chronic pain problems, exercise programs are actually one of the mainstay treatments that will help people function better on a daily basis," Deyo told Reuters.
