Does massage therapy really work? The newest scientific research on Massage Therapy

Massage therapy and other holistic health care practices are gaining traction in health care. As they become more popular, so too does the push to support the observed benefits of these practices with scientific research on massage therapy. 

When it comes to the human body, things get complicated and murky pretty quickly. We know a lot about the body. But there is likely much more about its workings and operations that we have yet to uncover. There has long been a large and ever-growing body of empirical and anecdotal evidence in support of massage therapy. Now, massage therapists are looking for these results to be backed by hard science. 

The use of precise massage therapy protocols to measure and show best results are gaining greater interest. We now have a wave of small-scale studies that examine massage therapy in highly specific contexts. The scientific research on massage therapy has begun!

Massage therapy organizations such as the American Massage Therapy Association (AMTA) are working on getting massage therapy accepted as a standard form of health care (hello, insurance companies, we see you…). Getting massage therapy to be covered by insurance the same as other practices will largely depend on what science has to say about it.  

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