Osteopathic Manipulative Treatment Effect on Pain Relief and Quality of Life in Oncology Geriatric Patients: A Nonrandomized Controlled Clinical Trial

Abstract

Purpose: The aim of present study was to study the effect of osteopathic manipulation on pain relief and quality of life improvement in hospitalized oncology geriatric patients. Methods: A nonrandomized controlled clinical trial was performed in the Oncology Rehabilitation Unit, Milan, Italy, from September 2015 to March 2016. Twenty-three older cancer patients were enrolled and allocated in 2 experimental groups: the study group (OMT group, N = 12) underwent osteopathic manipulative treatment in addition to physiotherapy, and the control group (PT group, N = 12) underwent only physiotherapy. At enrollment (T0), 24 recruited oncology patients completed the sociodemographic forms and were evaluated for pain intensity and quality of life by an external examiner. All patients were revaluated every week (T1, T2, T3, and T4) for pain intensity and at the end of the study treatment (T4) for quality of life. A standard level of significance was set at α < .05. Results: The 2 groups did not significantly differ in age (P = .682), body mass index (P = .413), or gender (P = 1). The osteopathic manipulative treatment added to physiotherapy produced a significant reduction in Numeric Rating Scale (NRS) scores both at T2 (P = .004) and T4 (P = .002). The difference in quality of life improvements between T0 and T4 was not statistically significant. NRS improved in the PT group at T4. Between-group analysis of NRS and quality of life with the Mann-Whitney test did not show any significant difference between the 2 treatments. Conclusions: Our study showed a significant improvement in pain relief and a nonsignificant improvement in quality of life in hospitalized geriatric oncology patients during osteopathic manipulative treatment. Trial Registration: Protocol registered on Clinicaltrials.gov (NCT03142386).

Clinical Evidence for the Effects of Manual Therapy on Cancer Pain: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

“…MT in the studies mainly included massage therapy [ 15 , 25 , 27 – 29 , 32 ], myofascial therapy [ 14 , 24 , 30 ], foot reflexology [ 13 , 26 ], osteopathic manipulative treatment [ 31 ], and acupressure [ 33 ]. The control therapies contained standard care [ 13 , 15 , 26 , 27 , 30 , 32 , 33 ] and active therapies (AT) including physical therapy [ 14 , 31 ], kinesiotherapy [ 24 , 25 ], reading therapy [ 29 ], and psychological support [ 28 ]. The frequency of intervention was from twice a day to once a week, and each intervention method lasted from 10 to 50 minutes.…”

“…When assessing the effects of MT, seven studies [ 13 , 15 , 26 , 27 , 30 , 32 , 33 ] compared the efficacy differences between MT and standard care. In addition, four studies [ 14 , 24 , 25 , 31 ] compared MT plus AT and AT alone, and two studies [ 28 , 29 ] compared MT with AT. The details of all studies are summarized in Tables 1 and 2 .…”

“…According to the PEDro scale, all the studies received a score of 6 or more, indicating they were considered to be of high quality. However, five studies [ 15 , 27 , 31 – 33 ] were at the limit of the cutoff with scores of 6, and the reason for which was that although random assignment of patients was adopted, they did not use the appropriate method of assignment concealment. The most common defect was the lack of blinded therapists and blinded subjects, but this situation cannot be considered as a defect because it was difficult to implement in the study, and all the studies used blinded assessors.…”

Does Osteopathic Manipulative Treatment Induce Autonomic Changes in Healthy Participants? A Thermal Imaging Study

“…In conclusion, OMT is known to have a significant impact on different age groups (Channell et al, 2016;Ruffini et al, 2016;Lanaro et al, 2017). While osteopathy can have some benefits for diverse clinical conditions (Franke et al, 2014;Cicchitti et al, 2015;Bagagiolo et al, 2016;Racca et al, 2017;Arienti et al, 2018), a better understanding of the neurophysiological mechanisms underpinning these effects is required to improve protocols and plan trials targeting specific clinical conditions that can benefit the most. The present research supports the hypothesis that a single session of OMT as compared to sham induces sympathovagal autonomic effects in healthy non-symptomatic adults.…”

Use of Complementary and Alternative Medicines among Cancer Patients: A Single-Center Study

“…Most evidence regarding osteopathy in cancer care is therefore based on “anecdotal evidence,” i.e., reports made by patients, osteopaths, or clinicians, saying that it has helped. Regarding the scientific literature, a recent study suggested a significant pain reduction in 24 hospitalized elderly cancer patients using osteopathy [21]. However, their quality of life was not significantly improved.…”