The Effect of Single-Dose Massage Session on Autonomic Activity,Mood,and Affective Responses in Major Depressive Disorder

Abstract

Background: Massage therapy (MT) is a holistic procedure that includes hand pressure (HP), therapeutic communication (TC), and attentive care (AC); together, these procedures could decrease symptoms of depression. Purpose: To study the influence of TC and AC during MT. Methods: Within-subject experimental design with counterbalancing order of treatment. Comparison analysis of the effect of a typical Swedish massage session (SM) with a “sham” massage (ShM; without HP) on the heart rate variability (HRV) mood and affective responses of patients with major depressive disorder (N = 11). During the ShM, clay stones were randomly placed on the body, and the patients were informed about the (sham) therapeutic effect of stones. Findings: A main effect of time showed that after intervention, both SM and ShM increased the HRV (high-frequency power; F[1, 10] = 7.58, p = .02) and reduced scores for anxiety (F[1, 10] = 37.57, p < .001), other feelings (F[1, 10] = 22.64, p = .001), and physical sedation (F[1, 10] = 10.72, p = .008). The SM was associated with more positive affective responses than ShM (qualitative analysis). Conclusions: AC and TC included in MT session improved mood and HRV in the absence of HP. Additional effect on affective responses was observed owing to the HP.

Keywords

depression heart rate variability vagal activity top-down neural network

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