Outpatient massage impact on symptom distress in cancer patients and caregivers.
Bibliographic record
Abstract
e20651 Background: Massage as a manual therapy has shown benefit for symptomatic relief in cancer patients and their caregivers. We explored the impact of a single massage session on self-reported symptoms in an outpatient setting at a large academic cancer center. Methods: Data were reviewed from massage sessions (30 or 60 minute duration) at our Integrative Medicine Center outpatient clinic from May, 2011 through December, 2013. Participants completed a pre- and post-massage symptom assessment instrument, the Edmonton Symptom Assessment Scale (ESAS; 10 symptoms, scale from 0-10, where 10 is most severe). Global symptom distress (GSD; range 0-100) was calculated as the sum of individual symptom scores. ESAS subscales analyzed included Physical Distress (PHS; range 0-70) and Psychological Distress (PSS; range 0-30). Data were analyzed examining the pre and post scores using paired t-tests. Results: Our analysis included data collected from 1478 massage visits for 555 participants (mean 2.7 visits/person) over 32 months. During this period, our center had 2,370 massage visits (1,828 60 minute sessions and 542 30 minute sessions). Symptoms with the highest scores (score≥2; means) at baseline included: Sleep [2.9; n=1,184]; Well Being [2.88; n=1,175]; Fatigue [2.7; n=1199]; Pain [2.3; n=1,194]; and Anxiety [2.1; n=1,193]. A single massage session resulted in a significant decrease in GSD [19.2 to 11.7 (t=-23.4; p<0.0001)], PHS [12.6 to 7.6 (t=-21.5; p<0.0001)], and PSS [6.7 to 4 (t=-19.26; p<0.0001)]. Massage resulted in a statistically and clinically significant reduction (decrease in symptom score ≥1; means) in symptom expression for Fatigue [-1.23; n=784], Well Being [-1.16; n=761], and Pain [-1.13; n=783] (all p’s <0.0001). Conclusions: A single 30- or 60-minute massage session resulted in acute relief of self-reported symptoms in patients and caregivers. Further study is warranted to gain insight into the potential benefits of massage in relieving symptom distress in cancer patients and caregivers, the temporal nature of the effects, and the necessary frequency to maintain effective symptom control.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.005 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.005 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".