The Article in Brief
Five-Week Outcomes From a Dosing Trial of Therapeutic Massage for Chronic Neck Pain
Karen J. Sherman , and colleagues
Background Neck pain is a common and debilitating condition, and massage therapy is commonly used to treat it. This study evaluates the optimal dose of massage for persons with chronic neck pain.
What This Study Found Two hundred twenty-eight patients with chronic neck pain were randomized to 5 groups receiving various doses of massage for a 5-week period. The study found that the benefits of massage treatments for chronic neck pain increase with dose. Specifically, patients who received 30-minute treatments 2 or 3 times weekly were not significantly better than a wait-listed control group in terms of achieving a clinically meaningful improvement in neck dysfunction or pain. In contrast, patients who received 60-minute treatments 2 or 3 times weekly showed significant improvement in neck dysfunction and pain intensity compared to the control group. Compared with their control counterparts, massage participants were 3 times more likely to have clinically meaningful improvement in neck function if they received 60 minutes of massage twice a week and 5 times more likely if they received 60 minutes of massage 3 times a week.
Implications
- Patients who receive massage treatment for chronic neck pain may not be realizing benefits from treatment because they are not receiving an effective treatment dose.