• Complement Ther Clin Pract · May 2013

    Clinical Trial

    Exploratory study on the efficacy of reflexology for pain threshold and tolerance using an ice-pain experiment and sham TENS control.

    • Carol A Samuel and Ivor S Ebenezer.
    • School of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences, University of Portsmouth, St Michaels Building, White Swan Road, Portsmouth PO1 2DT, United Kingdom. reflexmaster1@sky.com
    • Complement Ther Clin Pract. 2013 May 1; 19 (2): 57-62.

    ObjectivesTo explore the efficacy of reflexology on acute pain induced in healthy human subjects using a sham TENS control.DesignAn ice-pain experiment was undertaken in which the volunteers (n = 15; 11 female and 4 male with a mean ± SEM age of 37.7 ± 2.6 years) were required to immerse their non-dominant hand in a container of ice-slurry whilst two indices of pain, i.e. threshold, (the time taken for subjects to experience the first pain sensation) and tolerance, (the time when the subject is unable to tolerate any further pain), were measured.ResultsCompared to control data, reflexology increased acute pain threshold (F(1,14) = 4.5958, p < 0.05) and tolerance (F(1,14) = 5.1095, p < 0.05).ConclusionsThese findings demonstrate that reflexology produces antinociceptive effects in a controlled experiment and suggest the possibility that reflexology may be useful on its own or as an adjunct to medication in the treatment of pain conditions in man.Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

      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…