WORKSHOP Saturday, May 27, 3:15-4:45
Taxonomy of Therapeutic Massage and Bodywork: An Aid
in Developing Sophisticated Intervention Protocols
Speakers: Janet Kahn, PhD, NCTMB, Dawn Schmidt, BA, LMT,
John Katomski, BS, LMT
The wide use of therapeutic massage and bodywork
by North Americans makes research into its safety and efficacy imperative.
Fortunately the body of research on massage has both grown and improved
in recent years. Early reviews of the literature consistently lamented
the poor quality of massage research, citing lack of control groups,
randomization, blinding and adequate sample size. Despite improvement
the literature remains weakened by two related problems:
1. inadequate reporting on the specifics of the massage or bodywork
intervention, thus rendering replication difficult, and
2. a relative lack of sophistication in protocol design due, perhaps,
to researchers' lack of familiarity with the range of massage and bodywork
modalities available and their different effects.
In part to remedy this problem, the Massage
Therapy Research Consortium (MTRC), has developed a comprehensive taxonomy
of therapeutic massage and bodywork, organizing the field according
to presumed mechanisms of action and/or physiological effects. It is
hoped that may alleviate the confusion caused by the many bodywork modalities
with names indicating only who developed them and not what they entail
or the effects they may prompt (e.g. Alexander Technique, Hellerwork,
Rolfing, etc.).
The MTRC, a voluntary consortium comprised of
eleven massage schools across Canada and US, was formed in 2003, to
build research capacity within massage schools and to aid the enterprise
of massage therapy research in general.
Objectives and Format: This interactive workshop
will introduce participants to the taxonomy and thus to the field of
therapeutic massage and bodywork, via lecture and brief demonstration.
Participants will then be organized into small groups and partnered
with at least one massage educator from the MTRC. These groups will
experiment with using the taxonomy (and the resident massage educator)
in the design of a massage research protocol designed to address a research
question of the participants' choosing, or one offered by the presenters.
The design exercise will address all aspects of the intervention protocol
including technique(s) employed, practitioner characteristics, dosage
parameters of frequency, total number and duration, etc.
The taxonomy's three main branches of methods
based in Western anatomy and physiology, those based in Eastern anatomy
and physiology, and hybrid methods, are in turn comprised of eight,
seven and three categories respectively. This taxonomy is intended to
facilitate 1) the design of more sophisticated and clinically relevant
massage protocols in research, 2) increased replication of specific
studies, 3) the conduct of meta-analyses because data will be more readily
aggregated, and 4) the development of hypothesis-driven research on
mechanisms of action in massage interventions. It will do this in part
by offering a common language and framework that can be referenced by
all researchers.