Massage therapy for low back pain: a systematic review

Three pages on PainSci cite Ernst 1999: 1. Reviews of Pain Professions 2. Does Massage Therapy Work? 3. The Complete Guide to Low Back Pain 

PainSci notes on Ernst 1999:

This is a review of four studies, all of which were burdened with “major methodological flaws.” It concludes that “Massage seems to have some potential as a therapy for LBP. More investigations of this subject are urgently needed.” (Such as the large study finally published in 2011: see Massage Therapy Kinda, Sorta Works for Back Pain.)

This page is part of the PainScience BIBLIOGRAPHY, which contains plain language summaries of thousands of scientific papers & others sources. It’s like a highly specialized blog. A few highlights:

• Common interventional procedures for chronic non-cancer spine pain: a systematic review and network meta-analysis of randomised trials. Wang 2025 BMJ.
• Gabapentinoids and Risk of Hip Fracture. Leung 2024 JAMA Netw Open.
• Classical Conditioning Fails to Elicit Allodynia in an Experimental Study with Healthy Humans. Madden 2017 Pain Med.
• Topical glyceryl trinitrate (GTN) and eccentric exercises in the treatment of mid-portion achilles tendinopathy (the NEAT trial): a randomised double-blind placebo-controlled trial. Kirwan 2024 Br J Sports Med.
• Placebo analgesia in physical and psychological interventions: Systematic review and meta-analysis of three-armed trials. Hohenschurz-Schmidt 2024 Eur J Pain.