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October 2007 [Volume 6, Issue 10]
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In this issue of To Your Health:
Massage Helping Dementia Patients
Danish researchers have found that gentle forms of massage therapy are providing encouraging signs of easing dementia patients' agitation and anxiety, although they do acknowledge that more research needs to be done.
In a review of two clinical trials, researchers found that hand massage helped calm dementia patients' agitation levels and gentle touch and verbal encouragement during meals improved their food intake. Researchers hope that more studies can be done to determine if massage therapy and other forms of human touch really do relieve the agitation, anxiety and other behavioral and emotional problems that come with Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia.
The research findings appear in the Cochrane Library, a publication of the Cochrane Collaboration, an international organization that evaluates medical research. The two studies reviewed included a total of 110 nursing home residents with dementia. In one study, researchers used gentle touch and verbal encouragement to help residents remain calm at meal times. In the other study, researchers found that hang massage, with or without calming music, helped sooth dementia patients' agitation levels for short periods of time.
Ayurveda has long been a popular massage treatment and beauty regimen in India but it is increasingly gaining in popularity in the U.S. Once just an option for wealthy tourists, Ayurveda is now being offered at spas and hotels across the country.
Other countries have gotten into the mix with Ayurveda treatments also offered in hotels and spas throughout Thailand and Singapore as well. With Asia's medical tourism market forecast to grow to $2.3 billion by 2012, more countries are attempting to cash in on health and wellness tourism market.
A future option could be luxury hospitals for foreign tourists and wealthy locals staffed by highly trained doctors which could offer various surgical options along with guided tours of local hot spots. However, don't discount the current revival of traditional remedies through treatment centers and beauty products such as over-the-counter herbal and ayurvedic products containing combinations of herbs, spices, flowers and fruits such as saffron, basil and green apple.
Stay turned for an ayurveda treatment center at your next vacation destination, or around the corner at your local spa.
Massage and Occipital Nerve Question
Question: Can massage therapy help an inflammation of the occipital nerve causing shoulder and neck tightness and head numbness or should it be left alone to heal on its own? This has been a five month ordeal and massage therapy has allowed some neck movement to return and about a 50 percent reduction in the head numbness. Do you think I'm having it over manipulated and not allowing it to heal?
Answer: Without more information, I can only toss out a guess. Do you mean occipital neuralgia? Occipital neuralgia is damage to the occipital nerve caused by trauma, physical stress or medical conditions. It is characterized by chronic pain in upper neck, back of head, behind the ears and headaches. Neuralgia caused by compression from a trauma leading to scar tissue can be very slow to heal. Massage can be helpful in alleviating the discomfort and one particular form of massage that can be helpful is myofascial therapy. To find a therapist in your area please visit www.myofascialrelease.com.
Rajam Roose
Note: Information provided in this Q&A section is drawn from the "Ask a Massage Therapist" online forum, in which massage therapists field questions relative to the massage profession. Readers are encouraged to post their questions at www.massagetoday.com/ask/. Answers should not be misconstrued as a diagnosis, prognosis or treatment recommendation and do not in any way constitute the practice of massage therapy or any other health care profession. Readers should consult their own health care providers for medical advice.
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