Massage for Low Back Pain Gets a Boost
The American Massage Therapy Association (AMTA) recently approved financial support for the Integrative Healthcare Policy Consortium (IHPC) to propose that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) hold a consensus conference on massage for low back pain. The IHPC is a coalition of health care professional organizations advocating public policy to ensure access to safe, high quality medical care for all Americans. The latest survey from the AMTA provides evidence of the increasing popularity of massage for therapeutic purposes and suggests the tides may be changing in favor of insurance coverage for massage.
Massage has been credited with alleviating a wide variety of aches and pains, from migraines and carpal tunnel to anxiety and low back pain. More than 100 million Americans suffer from low back pain and nearly $25 billion a year is spent in search of relief. In the Centers for Disease Control's 30th annual report on the health status of the nation, Health, United States, 2006, low back pain was the most commonly reported type of pain, the most common cause of job-related disability, and a leading contributor to missed work and reduced productivity.
Today, massage therapy is one of the most common ways people relieve back pain. Research is increasingly showing that millions of Americans regularly use complementary and alternative health care approaches. Because most of this complementary care is paid for by the patients themselves, without any assistance from Medicare or other forms of insurance, it is not accessible to all Americans. Only those who can afford the out-of-pocket costs have access to broader choices in their health care. Massage patients, massage therapists and affiliated health care organizations remain hopeful that the NIH consensus conference will convince the health care community and insurance providers of the benefits of massage therapy – a treatment that already provides much needed relief to millions of Americans.
