Issue link: https://www.massageandbodyworkdigital.com/i/149404
If the massage therapy profession itself will shine some light on the need for this specialized— and special—type of massage therapy, then the future of pediatric oncology massage should be bright. MSN, FAAN, recalled meeting Cynthia Myers, PhD, LMT, and Lonnie Zeltzer, MD, as well as several Canadian massage therapists, physicians, and nurses at that event. "It was such an inspiring group!" Post-White's work in the field of integrative therapies led to her becoming the founder of the Children's Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota's Integrative Medicine program. It is now the largest and longest-running pediatric clinical integrative medicine program in North America. She was lead investigator on an oft-cited study funded by the Massage Therapy Foundation titled "Massage Therapy in Childhood Cancer," which was published in the January/February 2009 issue of Journal of Pediatric Oncology Nursing.6 "Our study was small," Post-White says, "and I can't necessarily conclude that massage reduced symptoms or facilitated healing," but it clearly provided a positive experience during a stressful time. She also completed a longitudinal study in which children received four weekly massages alternating with a "usual care" control session, while their parents also received regular chair massage. "We learned much from both of these small studies," Post-White says. The late Cynthia Myers, PhD, LMT, published a study titled "Complementary Therapies and Childhood Cancer" in the July 2005 issue of the journal Cancer Control.7 While that study did not focus exclusively on massage therapy, it was particularly useful since Myers and her colleagues exhaustively reviewed, analyzed, and aggregated the findings of 14 separate studies conducted from 1994 to 2004 on numerous complementary therapies for children with cancer. Myers was the founding director of the Integrative Medicine Program at the Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa until her death in 2008. A study by Jolie Haun, PhD, LMT, John Graham-Pol, MD, and Brendan Shortley, reported in the International Journal of Therapeutic Massage and Bodywork in June 2009, found that "although cancer clinics and oncology/hematology wards are hectic clinical settings that must provide necessarily invasive clinical care such as chemotherapy, which clearly compromises the immune system, our data suggest that the addition of [massage therapy] as a palliative treatment can increase the quality of life and the health of pediatric oncology and hematology patients."8 The body of research is growing, but it is clearly not large enough nor convincing enough to persuade all hospitals, physicians, or insurance companies that massage therapy is "good for patients and good for the bottom line," as Cates puts it. But as the research continues, as awareness of the need for it grows, and if the massage therapy profession itself will shine some light on the need for this specialized— and special—type of massage therapy, then the future of pediatric oncology massage should be bright. Notes 1. American Cancer Society, "Childhood Cancers," accessed August 2013, www.cancer.gov/ cancertopics/factsheet/Sites-Types/childhood. 2. American Cancer Society, "What are the Key Statistics for Childhood Cancer?" accessed August 2013, www.cancer.org/ cancer/cancerinchildren/detailedguide/ cancer-in-children-key-statistics. 3. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, "Cancer in Children," accessed August 2013, www.cdc.gov/features/dscancerinchildren. 4. American Cancer Society, "What are the Key Statistics for Childhood Cancer?" 5. Lauren Cates, email correspondence with author, July 11, 2013. According to Cates, this is an ongoing study, still in its early stages, and no study results have yet been released. 6. Janice Post-White, "Massage Therapy in Childhood Cancer," Journal of Pediatric Oncology Nursing 26 (January/February 2009): 16–28. 7. Cynthia Myers et al., "Complementary Therapies and Childhood Cancer," Cancer Control 12, no. 3 (2005): 172–80. 8. Jolie Haun et al., "Children with Cancer and Blood Diseases Experience Positive Physical and Psychological Effects from Massage Therapy," International Journal of Therapeutic Massage and Bodywork 2, no. 2 (2009): 7–14. Janice Valverde divides time between her new practice, Valverde Massage in Venice, Florida, and writing about complementary health care. Valverde, an ABMP member, also belongs to the Society for Oncology Massage and the Association of Health Care Journalists. She can be reached at valverde.massage@gmail.com. www.abmp.com. See what benefits await you. 79