Massage Therapy: Annotated Bibliography

Massage Therapy: Annotated Bibliography

Field, Tiffany. “Massage therapy research review.” Complementary therapies in clinical practice vol. 20,4 (2014): 224-9. doi:10.1016/j.ctcp.2014.07.002

Massage therapy has been used as a complementary intervention for muscle energy for decades. This article seeks to elaborate on some of the positive effects that moderate pressure on the body can bring forth. It argues that moderate pressure massage is beneficial to the person because it has been proven to aid in weight gain among infants, alleviate pain caused by such conditions as fibromyalgia and rheumatoid arthritis, and increase attention to the task. However, the article decries the lack of most recent articles that address the topic, making recommendations for further reviews. This article will be necessary for my research because it elaborates on the direct positive outcomes of massage therapy. My main idea is to demonstrate to the students that massage therapy is good for their health and overall performance in school.

Sherman, Karen J et al. “Effectiveness of therapeutic massage for a generalized anxiety disorder: a randomized controlled trial.” Depression and anxiety, vol. 27,5 (2010): 441-50. doi:10.1002/da.20671

Therapeutic massage can be of a vital role for normal people who do it for recreation or people who have psychological disturbances. This article points out that therapeutic massage can be instrumental in helping people who experience anxiety attacks and related conditions. The use of therapeutic massage for generalized anxiety disorder has never had enough attention, yet it has been established that it is a proper way of healing anxiety. This article is useful for my research in the sense that it elaborated on the medical aspect of massage therapy. Other than dong massage for just relaxation, it is also a recommended intervention for people with diagnosed generalized anxiety.

Field, Tiffany. “Moderate pressure massage therapy.” Affective touch and the neurophysiology of CT afferents. Springer, New York, NY, 2016. 385-396.

This is an exhaustive review but relies on a representative data investigating the effects of moderate pressure massage therapy on weight gain patterns, pain reduction, the level of depression, attention, and immunity. It derives from the previous studies entitled “Massage therapy research review: Complementary therapies in clinical practice.” The paper concludes that there is a need to apply moderate pressure to enhance the effects listed above. This article is necessary for my research because it advances the knowledge established by the first article. Hence, it adds to the bulk of my literature on the same topic on interest.

Pritchard, Sarah. SD-Tui na E-Book: A manual of Chinese massage therapy. Elsevier Health Sciences, 2010.

Tui na is a traditional practice that mimics modern-day massage therapy. This book gives a comprehensive history of the method as well as the means of applying it in a traditional Chinese steps. Tu na has been approved as a reliable complementary medicine in treating such conditions as muscle problems, neck pain, and back pain, among others. This article is relevant for my study because it gives the historical foundation of massage therapy, a fact that can easily convince the audience that the method is reliable and has been in use for decades. Complementary medicine is always under scrutiny because of their unconventional methods of application.

Terri Bergstrom “Your Issues Are In Your Tissues.” TEDxHoracePark. “Youtube.” Youtube.com. N. p., 2019. Web. 24 Nov. 2019.

This TED talk by Terri Bergstrom is a confession in a first person’s language, acknowledging the need for massage therapy in times of physiological challenges and trauma. Terri Bergstrom is a massage therapist who has been working with clients from different scopes; she expresses that our past traumatic experiences can be embedded in our tissues such that the only way to let them out is through the same tissues. Massage is a sure way of achieving this. This source is instrumental in my research because it is more of a primary source since the speaker gives her own life experience to market massage therapy. Many of the audiences can buy such confessions that get second-hand information.

“Massage Therapy: Get Facts About Types And Benefits.” MedicineNet. N. p., 2019. Web. 24 Nov. 2019.

This is an online source published in the MedicineNet website for the general public knowledge of massage therapy. It acknowledges that the use of massage therapy as alternative medicine has been in practice for years, then goes ahead to mention some of the benefits. Among the benefits mentioned are pain relief, rehabilitation of sports injuries, stress and anxiety reduction, and management of depression. This article is good for my research because it confirms the claims made by the first article that massage therapy can help deal with anxiety and alleviate pain.