I wrote recently about the positive effects that massage therapy has for people suffering from breast cancer. Massage therapy has been proven to help women going through cancer treatment, both in improving levels of important compounds in their blood as well as generally improving their mood, well-being, and post-surgical pain.
New research reported by massagemag.com shows that massage therapy can help many other cancer patients as well, no matter what the stage of their cancer. The Web site cited a study, sponsored by the National Cancer Institute, which focused on nearly 100 cancer patients and their caregivers. Some of the caregivers were shown a DVD instructional video and an illustrated manual that demonstrated how to use simple touch and massage techniques.
As with the previous research on breast cancer and massage therapy, the results were fairly dramatic in demonstrating the benefit of massage therapy. While both the control group of caretakers and the group of caretakers providing massage therapy helped reduce the level of cancer symptoms in their patients, the reduction was more pronounced in the group that provided the simple massage therapy techniques.
In fact, the level of symptom reduction in the patients who received massage therapy was generally greater by more than a 2-to-1 rate, with stress and anxiety, pain, fatigue, depression, and nausea specific symptoms that saw a higher level of reduction with the group that used massage.
Yet another therapeutic benefit of massage therapy, with, no doubt, many more to be discovered in the world and written about here.