Movement and massage therapy reduce fibromyalgia pain

Abstract 

Forty patients with fibromyalgia were randomly assigned to a movement/massage therapy group or a relaxation control group. The movement/massage therapy group attended a 50-min session twice per week for 3 weeks and the relaxation group simply relaxed in a lying down position on the same schedule. The movement/massage therapy group in contrast to the relaxation control group showed decreases in depressed mood, state anxiety and regional pain immediately after the first and last sessions of the study and a decrease in depressed mood, state anxiety and regional pain at baseline from the first to the last session. Both the movement and the massage portions of the session involved self-administered stimulation of pressure receptors. The positive effects on pain relief in particular suggest that self-administered pressure stimulation may reduce pain.