Essay Example on Massage is an evidenced-based practice

Introduction The aim of this literature review is to see if massage is a evidenced based practise this will be focused on the literature relating to massage and the effect on lower back pain Any pain or discomfort in the back from the lower ribs to the inferior gluteal fold is classed as lower back pain kumar et al 2013 Massage is a manual manipulation of soft tissues to enhance a person's health and wellbeing there are many different types of massage all use different techniques to help clients injuries or allow clients to relax and sleep better northwestern health science university 2017 In my review there is a range of systematic reviews and books these sources of information have provided me with a large range of literature in the report Massage is becoming a regular way for people to treat lower back pain and some people have become dependant on massage to help treat their back pain Because of this researchers are increasingly comparing and assessing massage to other practises we currently know for back pain Evidenced for massage is information on massage practise that researchers and therapists have collected in a systematic manner Sackett et al 2000 A literature review is a account of what has been published by accredited researchers and the aim is to identify the strengths weaknesses and gaps in the literature of a given topic Mark Chen's powerpoint classwork Main body The first journal I will be looking at is lower back pain and sleep disturbance are reduced falling back pain Field at al 2013 carried out a test which would compare relaxation therapy against massage therapy the effects of each therapy would be compared against reduction of the clients pain anxiety sleep disturbance and depression 

The tests would also which had a greater increase in the clients relaxation range of movement around affected areas and their job productivity All of these results would be found out by a questionnaire and tests for range of movement By the time the results were evaluated it was clear the massage therapy helped the clients by reducing pain depression sleep disturbances and anxiety All of these were shown to be a lot more effective than relaxation therapy The result was less advantaged to one side as it was randomised sample this means that researches could not give their view However these results may not be as effective on a larger group there was only 30 adults with no specification on age or gender if the range of gender age and ethnicity was increased then the results may show differently and test may show a lot more accurate results However the sample sized was calculated in a certain way which allowed the results to be a bit more precise they did this by following the Hernandez Real et al 2001 Following that they refused anybody with back pain due to herniated disks or fractures in any of the vertebrae this would allow the study to be more focused on the effects The study was carried out over 35 days 5 weeks the group receiving the massage had two thirty minute massage sessions a week The massage was conducted on the back and the legs this meant they received 10 massages in the study period The relaxation group was taught different relaxation techniques and told to go home and do them twice a week for half and hour each session this meant the same time and frequency was formed for both groups

The test was slightly unfair as the clients that were at home doing the relaxation techniques may not have done them properly or even done them at all Also the relaxation therapy group may not have felt like it was helping as they had to stay in their home which may not be a relaxing environment which could be due to mess around the house or pressure from children Also as the massage group have professionals performing a practise on them which makes them feel more relaxed and physiologically will help them as well The whole study was to short for there to be more accurate results The information for the clients pain and the other factors of the test was recorded on the first session and on the last session this is for both the massage group and the relaxation group The questionnaire contained a series of questions some of the questions asked were moody state depression scale POMS this question was used to measure mood of the client this is useful as it has strong internal consistency and concurrent validity r 95 McNair et al 1971 Continually another question that was stated in the questionnaire was anxiety STAI and it also has strong internal consistency and concurrent validity r 83 spielberger 1972 however due to the questions being asked some of the clients may not feel they have met the expectations to be in the study so they might lie which would result in false representation this will completely change the results of the test therefore making the test unfair and a invalid test The motion of the spine was also tested this was done with range of movement which looks at the flexibility of the back Also pain was tested and measured using visual analog scale