Care ally-assisted massage for Veterans with chronic neck pain: TOMCATT results.
Contemp Clin Trials
; 142: 107561, 2024 Jul.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-38704120
ABSTRACT
PURPOSE:
Chronic neck pain (CNP) is prevalent and challenging to treat. Despite evidence of massage's effectiveness for CNP, multiple accessibility barriers exist. The Trial Outcomes for Massage Care Ally-Assisted vs. Therapist Treated (TOMCATT) study examined a care ally-assisted massage (CA-M) approach compared to a waitlist control prior to a study design modification (WL-C0).METHODS:
CA-M consisted of in-person training for veteran/care-ally dyads to learn a standardized 30-minue massage routine, instructional DVD, and printed treatment manual. Participants were to complete three care ally-assisted massage sessions weekly for 12-weeks. Outcomes collected at baseline, 1-, 3-, and 6-months included validated measures of neck pain severity and associated disability. Linear mixed-model approaches were used for analysis with 3-months as the primary outcome timepoint.RESULTS:
Participants (N = 203) were 56.7 ± 14 years old, 75% White, 15% female, and 75% married/partnered. Among 102 CA-M participants, 45% did not attend the in-person training and subsequently withdrew from the study and were more likely to be younger (p = .016) and employed (p = .004). Compared to WL-C0, CA-M participants had statistically significant reductions in pain-related disability at 3-months (-3.4, 95%CI = [-5.8, -1.0]; p = .006) and 6-months (-4.6, 95%CI = [-7.0, -2.1]; p < .001) and pain severity at 3-months (-1.3, 95%CI = [-1.9, -0.8]; p < .001) and 6-months (-1.0, 95%CI = [-1.6, -0.4]; p = .007), respectively.CONCLUSION:
In this analysis, CA-M led to greater reductions in CNP with disability and pain severity compared to WL-C0, despite treatment engagement and retention challenges. Future work is needed to determine how to better engage Veterans and their care-allies to attend CA-M training.Key words
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Veterans
/
Neck Pain
/
Chronic Pain
/
Massage
Limits:
Adult
/
Aged
/
Female
/
Humans
/
Male
/
Middle aged
Language:
En
Journal:
Contemp Clin Trials
Journal subject:
MEDICINA
/
TERAPEUTICA
Year:
2024
Type:
Article