The Medical Bulletin

The word massage comes from the Arabic word for “stroke,” and the practice of massage dates back 3,000 years to China. In the fourth century BC, Hippocrates wrote, “The physician must be experienced in many things, but most assuredly in rubbing.” What a surprise!

How many physicians do you know in the Western world who received training in massage? Do you have professional partnerships with individuals trained in “rubbing”? After all, how many of you have appreciated a good spa visit with your spouse, or perhaps have a massage therapist’s name in your cell phone directory? Are you aware of the growing scientific research supporting massage? Does your benefit package include a monthly massage as part of your stress management program? Did you know that the latest survey from the American Hospital Association (AHA) showed that the number of hospitals offering massage increased by more than one third from 2004 to 2006? One might ask: Is this an indication that medical perceptions are changing in the direction of massage as medicine?

In the booklet, A Physician’s Guide to Therapeutic Massage: Its Physiological Effects and Their Application to Treatment, Sheldon Nathanson, MD, wrote in the forward that the author “offers a further challenge to the massage therapist and the physician: to commit ourselves to work together for the mutual benefit of our patients.” The author, John Yates, obtained a PhD in physiology and first published this wonderful little 37-page guide in 1990, providing a critical step in developing communication between massage therapists and physicians by describing the benefits of therapeutic massage in the standard biochemical and physiological models. Chapter topics include: circulation of the blood and lymph; skeletal muscle; fibrosis and contracture; control of pain; respiratory function; and psychological effects; as well as six-pages of references from medical journals.

The Touch Research Institute (TRI), established in 1992 at the University of Miami School of Medicine was the first center in the world devoted solely to the study of touch and its application to science and medicine. Distinguished teams of medical researchers from Duke, Harvard, the University of Maryland, and other universities have participated. The following is from TRI’s Website:

“The Touch Research Institute has conducted over 100 studies on the positive effects of massage therapy on many functions and medical conditions in many different age groups. Among the significant research findings are enhanced growth (e.g., in preterm infants), diminished pain (e.g., fibromyalgia), decreased autoimmune problems (e.g., increased pulmonary function in asthma and decreased glucose levels in diabetes), enhanced immune function (e.g., increased natural killer cells in HIV and cancer), and enhanced alertness and performance (e.g., EEG pattern of alertness and better performance on math computations). Many of these effects appear to be mediated by decreased stress hormones.”

How do you decrease your stress hormones? Some physicians take this quite seriously. Most of us have heard of Dr. Mehmet Oz, with his regular appearances on talk shows. What you may not know is that Dr. Oz not only is a professor of cardiac surgery and the Director of the Cardiovascular Institute at New York Presbyterian Hospital-Columbia Medical Center, but a strong advocate of massage therapy. More than 90 percent of his surgical patients receive massage, and his prescription for himself: a weekly massage.

The incidence of medical doctors prescribing massage may be still in its infancy in this country, but it is quite different elsewhere. Take Russia as one example. When I first began my career as a massage therapist back in the early 1990s, I was quite fortunate to have stumbled upon Russian massage as an initial modality, virtually unknown in the U.S. until the 1980s. I was completely surprised to learn that Russian physicians prescribed massage regularly. In fact, for well over 100 years, until the 1990s (Perestroika), there were only two ways one could receive a massage: either with a physician’s prescription or as a member of an athletic team. After WWII, while the rest of the world was heavy into developing pharmaceutical drugs, the former U.S.S.R. put hundreds of physiatrists (MDs with a PhD in physical therapy) and physiologists to work, resulting in massage becoming one of the major forms of treatment in Russian medicine, boasting roughly 80 percent of the world’s massage research.

Whereas the medical community historically drove massage in Russia, in the U.S. it is consumer demand largely responsible for the rallying cry for massage services. Many clients are using various forms of massage to prevent illness; alleviate symptoms such as fatigue, pain, and nausea; and to improve their overall health. Physicians in the U.S. are discovering what Russian physicians have known for decades: that incorporating massage therapy into conventional medical care is the future of medicine.