Patients kneading away health ills with massage

By Allison Van Dusen

updated 8:24 p.m. ET June 15, 2007

When Chicago-area massage therapist Marilyn Kier opened her own business about 11 years ago, it mostly consisted of on-site corporate chair massages. In recent few years, however, she's shifted to using massage to treat repetitive strain injuries and various types of chronic pain.

Today, Kier sees many people via referrals from orthopedists, cardiologists and other physicians, who view massage as a way to help their patients heal.

"More and more people hear from others that their pain was helped," says Kier, who says she has a six-week appointment waiting list. "You can't argue with results."

Relaxation, of course, is still a major motivation for getting a rubdown.

Health benefits
But almost 30 percent of those who had a massage in the past five years said they did so for medical or health reasons other than stress relief, according to a 2006 survey by the American Massage Therapy Association. Their reasons included recovery from an injury, pain reduction, headache control and overall health and wellness.

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Massage is also popping up more frequently in patients' discussions with doctors. About 9 million more people talked about massage therapy with a health care provider in 2006 than they did five years ago. And the number of people who indicated their massage was paid for by insurance or a copay doubled from 5 percent in 2005 to 10 percent in 2006, according to the survey.

Kier expects more insurance companies to step up as medical research continues confirming the health benefits of massage. A study published in the Dec. 11 "Archives of Internal Medicine," performed by the Yale Prevention Research Center and the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, showed Swedish massage may be a safe and effective way to reduce pain and improve the functional ability of adults with osteoarthritis of the knee. Benefits persisted eight weeks after the four-month study.

"Given the knowledge of massage we have right now, I think we'll be reading much more about its variety of applications over the coming years," says Dr. David Katz, director of Yale's Prevention Research Center and the study's senior investigator.

Hospitals are getting in on the game, too. A biannual 2006 survey of hospitals across the U.S. conducted by Health Forum, a subsidiary of the American Hospital Association, showed the number of hospitals offering massage therapy has increased by more than one-third in two years.

Memorial Hermann Sugar Land Hospital in Texas, which opened its doors in December 2006, offers body, foot and hand massages for patients, as well as infant massage to soothe crying babies. Employees in need of a pick-me-up also can have chair massages. The program came about when officials began the design process for the replacement facility three years ago, says Chief Patient Care Officer Susan White.

"We determined we had an opportunity to change our model of care, recognizing that health care had been delivered the same way for over 50 years," White says.

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