• J Altern Complement Med · Jul 2013

    Randomized Controlled Trial

    Massage therapy for patients with metastatic cancer: a pilot randomized controlled trial.

    • Maria Toth, Edward R Marcantonio, Roger B Davis, Tracy Walton, Janet R Kahn, and Russell S Phillips.
    • Harvard Medical School Center for Primary Care, Division of General Medicine and Primary Care, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, MA 02215, USA.
    • J Altern Complement Med. 2013 Jul 1; 19 (7): 650-6.

    ObjectivesThe study objectives were to determine the feasibility and effects of providing therapeutic massage at home for patients with metastatic cancer.DesignThis was a randomized controlled trial.Settings/LocationPatients were enrolled at Oncology Clinics at a large urban academic medical center; massage therapy was provided in patients' homes.SubjectsSubjects were patients with metastatic cancer.InterventionsThere were three interventions: massage therapy, no-touch intervention, and usual care.Outcome MeasuresPrimary outcomes were pain, anxiety, and alertness; secondary outcomes were quality of life and sleep.ResultsIn this study, it was possible to provide interventions for all patients at home by professional massage therapists. The mean number of massage therapy sessions per patient was 2.8. A significant improvement was found in the quality of life of the patients who received massage therapy after 1-week follow-up, which was not observed in either the No Touch control or the Usual Care control groups, but the difference was not sustained at 1 month. There were trends toward improvement in pain and sleep of the patients after therapeutic massage but not in patients in the control groups. There were no serious adverse events related to the interventions.ConclusionsThe study results showed that it is feasible to provide therapeutic massage at home for patients with advanced cancer, and to randomize patients to a no-touch intervention. Providing therapeutic massage improves the quality of life at the end of life for patients and may be associated with further beneficial effects, such as improvement in pain and sleep quality. Larger randomized controlled trials are needed to substantiate these findings.

      Pubmed     Full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…