Hands vs. Beads
Study results released today show that acupressure calms children before surgery. This isn’t the first study to look at acupressure; but what I find interesting about it is that instead of applying acupressure as a hands-on technique, the researchers taped an “acupressure bead” to a specific point on each child.
Should masage-and-bodywork research utilize real practitioners? My first instinct is to say yes, but I also believe that good results from any research can only boost the use of hands-on therapies.
Read an article about this research here:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080930/hl_nm/us_acupressure_children_1
October 2nd, 2008 23:21
Utilizing the bead eliminated the “human” touch factor and allowed the researcher to objectively look at and see if the acupressure points worked or not. This approach could be compared to 3rd group of hands on acupressure in the future to see if there is any difference in hands vs hands of.
This study only used 52 subjects and is thus considered only preliminary in its findings and should not be considered reliable.
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October 7th, 2008 19:06
Using seeds taped to a point in auricular acupuncture/acupressure has been practiced in China for a very long time, and is now used around the world. They could have had an acupuncturist put a needle in the same spot, but needles can cause stress in children. Other spots that could be used are GB20 and Du20, but they are usually covered with hair.
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