Massage therapy in palliative care populations: a narrative review of literature from 2012 to 2022.

Cates C, Jordan K, Munk N, Farrand R, Kennedy AB, Groninger H. Massage therapy in palliative care populations: a narrative review of literature from 2012 to 2022. Annals of palliative medicine. 2023 Sep 1; 12(5):963-975.

Dimensions for VA is a web-based tool available to VA staff that enables detailed searches of published research and research projects.

If you have VA-Intranet access, click here for more information vaww.hsrd.research.va.gov/dimensions/

VA staff not currently on the VA network can access Dimensions by registering for an account using their VA email address.    Search Dimensions for VA for this citation
* Don't have VA-internal network access or a VA email address? Try searching the free-to-the-public version of Dimensions

Search for Abstract from PubMed

---

Abstract:

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Patients living with serious illness are often eligible for palliative care and experience physical symptoms including pain or dyspnea and psychological distress that negatively impacts health-related quality of life and other outcomes. Such patients often benefit from massage therapy to reduce symptom burden and improve quality of life when such treatment is available. At present, no synthesis or review exists exploring massage therapy specifically provided with palliative care patient populations. This review is needed because those with serious illness are a growing and important vulnerable population. Massage therapy is used frequently and in many healthcare delivery contexts, but the body of research has not led to its systematic integration or broad acceptance. METHODS: PubMed search for clinical research focused on massage therapy for palliative care-eligible populations from 2012 and 2022. Search terms included keywords: massage, massage therapy, serious illness, advanced illness, and palliative care. KEY CONTENT AND FINDINGS: Thirteen unique articles were identified through the PubMed database search and from a manual review of references. Study designs of included articles were one pilot, one quasi-experimental single-arm study, one mixed-methods study, two qualitative (both with hospital-based palliative care populations), seven randomized controlled trials, and one retrospective cohort analysis in a major Veterans Health Administration health care facility. CONCLUSIONS: Variability was found in study design, scope, sample size, and outcomes for related articles published in the last ten years. Few eligible interventions reflected real-world massage therapy delivery suggesting more clinical research is needed to examine massage provided by massage therapists trained to work with palliative care populations. Gaps in the current body of existing evidence supports the need for this review and recommendations for the direction of future related research.