Hey massage therapists, an article published today in the Wall Street Journal by Andrea Petersen has a lot of info you already know from first-hand experience BUT it’s still great to see a mainstream national publication recap the therapeutic, not just the ‘feel-good’ value of massage therapy. You may want to print this out or save it as a PDF to give to your clients. There’s no such thing as an overly well informed client, right?

A few factoids and excerpts:

        The American College of Physicians and the American Pain Society now include massage as one of their recommendations for treating low back pain, according to guidelines published in 2007.
        The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), part of the National Institutes of Health, is currently spending $2.7 million on massage research, up from $1.5 million in 2002.
        About 8.3% of American adults used massage in 2007, up from 5% in 2002, according to a National Health Statistics report that surveyed 23,393 adults in 2007 and 31,044 adults in 2002, the latest such data available.
        A study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine in 2006 showed that full-body Swedish massage greatly improved symptoms of osteoarthritis of the knee. Patients who had massages twice weekly for four weeks and once a week for an additional four weeks had less pain and stiffness and better range of motion than those who didn’t get massages. They were also able to walk a 50-foot path more quickly.
        Massage was expected to be a $10 billion to $11 billion industry in 2011 in the U.S., according to estimates by the American Massage Therapy Association (AMTA), a nonprofit professional organization.

There is emerging evidence that [massage] can make contributions in treating things like pain, where conventional medicine doesn’t have all the answers,” said Jack Killen, NCCAM’s deputy director.