Effects of Massage Therapy Intervention on Autonomic Nervous System Promotion in Integrated Circuit Design Company Employees

Abstract

Massage is accepted as a universal means to help people to regain physical health. The purpose of this study was to investigate the autonomic nervous system function in integrated circuit design company employees who treated with massage by analyzing heart rate variability (HRV).

The participants were fifteen company employees aged between 28 and 45 years (mean: 37.5 years) treated with back, shoulder and waist massage. The treatment period was approximately 20 minutes. Measurement of photoplethysmography was obtained during 2 minutes before massage therapy as pretest and after massage therapy as posttest. The peak-topeak interval of heart pulse signals were analyzed using power spectral analysis to quantify the time domain and frequency domain properties of heart rate variability. Comparisons the heart rate variability indices of pretest and posttest were performed with the Wilcoxon Sign-Rank Test. Comparison of the quantitative heart rate variability measures at pretest and posttest revealed that the heart rate (HR) was significantly lower and standard deviation of normal intervals (SDNN) was significantly higher in posttest, compared with pretest (p<0.05).

Heart rate variability analysis showed that HR was decreased and SDNN was increased significantly by 20 minutes massage treatment. The decreased HR is related to physical or mental relaxation. The SDNN is well known to be representative of the entire autonomic nervous system of the heart. The results of this research suggest that entire autonomic nervous system and physical or mental state can be promoted with massage. Therefore, the massage therapy may be used to promote health in the employees with autonomic nervous system function withdrawal which was induced by working stress and fatigue.