Issue link: https://www.massageandbodyworkdigital.com/i/72312
SOMATIC RESEARCH For example, let's imagine that one of The diversity and range of topics on research in massage never fails to amaze me. your clients asks you if there's anything that massage could do for a relative of hers who is in the final stage of kidney disease and who is having a great deal of difficulty sleeping due to discomfort and anxiety. You do a literature search to find out who has already researched and published on this topic. You find: • Tsay, S. L. and M. L. Chen. 2003. Acupressure and quality of sleep in patients with end-stage renal disease—a randomized controlled trial. International Journal of Nursing Studies. 40, no. 1:1–7. You scan the abstract (summary of the entire article) to find out whether it is on topic for your question. There, you read the following: • Results demonstrated significant differences between the acupressure group and the control group in subjective sleep quality (p=0.009), sleep duration (p=0.004), habitual sleep efficiency (p=0.001), and sleep sufficiency (p=0.004). One of the things we are going to do is to demystify the jargon, so that the purpose and meanings of the technical terms in the sentence above are clear. For the purpose of the exercise now, let's just say that, having developed the skill of research literacy, you get the following important nuances from the sentence above: • In comparison to the patients [in the final stage of kidney disease] who received no treatment, the group of patients who received acupressure showed noticeable improvements in their self-described quality of sleep, in their length of sleep, in how effective their sleep was, and in getting enough of the sleep they need. The researchers are very confident that these outcomes are valid and meaningful, and there 146 massage & bodywork january/february 2008