Help After Heart Surgery

A Mayo Clinic five-month pilot study shows massage therapy dramatically reduces pain levels for heart surgery patients.  The study involved fifty-eight patients who were asked to rate the level of pain they were experiencing on a scale of one to ten.  Thirty patients were then given massage treatments.  The twenty-eight patients who received no treatment reported no change in pain management, while the other thirty lowered their assessment scores to one.  The findings prompted the Mayo Clinic to hire a full-time massage therapist. 

The findings of the Mayo Clinic study can be located in the November 2007 issue of Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice.