Massage as a therapeutic tool, part 2

Massage as pain relief The literature on the use of massage for pain relief is clear on the capacity of massage to reduce and even temporarily elimi-nate acute or chronic pain. The mechanism for this is less clear, but one study shows that massage increases plasma beta-endorphins. Kaada and Torsteinbo- had 12 volunteers in a controlled study who suffered from myalgia and various other types of pain. They were given Dicke's connective tissue massage.2,3 This massage was evolved in Germany and is used primarily to diagnose and manage disorders associated with pathology of the circulatory system and muscular ten-sion. All the subjects reported feeling more relaxed and warmer after the 3D-minute treatment and the results indicat-ed that a single session of connective tissue massage is fol-lowed by a moderate elevation in plasma beta-endorphins