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The possible mechanisms of massage therapy.

Houyong Zhong,Cuimei Wang, Zhen Wan, Jinpei Lei

Massage therapy is called "green medicine" by the World Health Organization. It has been used as an effective treatment for various conditions, diseases, symptoms, and disorders, which include pain syndromes, hypertension, fatigue, depression, cancer, aging problems, etc. In order to understand the mechanism of massage therapy this article reviews plenty of previous studies investigated the effects of massage, and discusses the different possible mechanisms of massage therapy which include biochemical mechanisms (passive muscle stiffness, range of motion, visual analog scale), physiological mechanisms (skin and muscle temperature, blood pressure, blood flow, heart rate variability, heart rate, pressure pain threshold), neurological mechanisms (Hoffman reflex, anxiety associated with scapulocostal syndrome, state anxiety inventory), and psychological mechanisms (heart rate variability, profile of mood states, salivary cortisol).