ABMP Grant Supports Massage for
Low-Back Pain Management

Low-back pain is rampant in the United States, and creates both a burden on our health-care system and lost productivity. In 2003, 28 percent of adults age 18 years and over reported low-back pain lasting a day or more in the last three-month period, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's report, "Health, United States, 2005."

In response to this health crisis, a national massage association has pledged $15,000 to raise the profile of massage therapy as a treatment for low-back pain.

The Associated Bodywork & Massage Professionals (ABMP) announced its contribution to a National Institutes for Health, Office of Medical Applications of Research initiative on Sept. 13. The initiative is termed a consensus conference, and involves testimony and a research review by an independent panel.

"The evidence [for massage's efficacy] is there, and the time has come," said ABMP President Les Sweeney. "We moved swiftly to support this initiative because massage therapists are long overdue in receiving medical recognition for the work they do to relieve suffering from back pain."

Back pain "has considerable medical and economic consequences for society by placing a large burden on the health-care system in terms of diagnosis, treatment and medication management," the CDC report noted. "In addition, there are substantial indirect costs associated with reduced productivity. Americans spend at least $50 billion a year on low-back pain, the most common cause of job-related disability and a leading contributor to missed work."

The last consensus conference addressing back pain was more than a decade ago and led to insurance coverage for spinal manipulation in treating back pain. At that time, the body of research supporting massage therapy was deemed insufficient to gain similar recognition, according to the ABMP.

In a statement to the press, the ABMP noted that massage-research expert (and frequent contributor to MASSAGE Magazine) Janet Kahn, Ph.D., "believes sufficient research has been conducted since that time to warrant a favorable finding for massage and for some of the other complementary and alternative therapies that could be included in the same consensus-conference process."