A US study shows that massage therapy may help relieve acute
postoperative pain in patients who have major surgery, media
reports said Tuesday.
"In patients getting massage, the acute response was equivalent
to a dose of morphine, which was pretty remarkable," said study
senior author Dr. Daniel B. Hinshaw, professor of surgery and a
member of the palliative care team at the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare
System in Michigan.
In the study of 605 men 64 years and older who had major
surgery, 200 received nightly 20-minute back massages for four
days. On a scale of 1 to 10, those who got massages reported their
pain diminished one level faster than those who did not.
Study limitations include virtually all participants being
elderly men; potential self-selection bias because patients who did
not want to be touched refused to participate; and inability to
perform dose-response interventions.
According to the study, "the rate of decline was faster by about
a day for patients in the massage group," he said. Patients also
experienced short-term declines in anxiety following massage.
But the study found no differences in longer-term patient
anxiety, length of hospital stay or the amount of pain-relieving
medication used among the three groups.
Massage will now become part of the post-surgical routine at the
Ann Arbor facility and related VA facilities in the region, Hinshaw
said. His group is exploring its use to reduce the incidence and
length of delirium experienced after surgery. Delirium, which is
difficult to treat, can often lengthen the time spent in the
hospital after surgery, he said.
The Department of Veterans Affairs Health Services Research and
Development supported this study.
(Agencies via Xinhua December 18, 2007)