Study: Acupressure Eases Back Pain

acupressure-back-pain[Image: AndreyPopov/istock]
Research published in Pain Medicine (June 2019) found that people with chronic lower back pain who performed self-administered acupressure experienced improvement in pain and fatigue symptoms. For the study, 67 subjects with chronic low back pain were randomly placed into three groups: relaxing acupressure, stimulating acupressure or usual care. Participants in the acupressure groups were trained to apply pressure to certain points of the body, and spent between 27 and 30 minutes daily performing the technique, while those in the usual care group were told to continue whatever treatments they were already receiving to manage their back pain and fatigue. “Compared to the usual care group, we found that people who performed stimulating acupressure experienced pain and fatigue improvement, and those who performed relaxing acupressure felt their pain had improved after six weeks,” says lead author Susan Murphy, ScD, OTR, associate professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation at Michigan Medicine.

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