Shiatsu and Acupressure: Two Different and Distinct Techniques
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Although shiatsu has been taught in specialized schools in Japan since 1940, there is a limited amount of research for its practice. As a result, authors substitute shiatsu with acupressure to use available research on acupressure. It is the position of the authors that, while the two share common aspects, they are substantively different. This project was undertaken to describe technical differences and advocate for a clear distinction, especially in research studies and academic discussions. METHODS: To understand whether it is appropriate to include acupressure studies in the evidence for shiatsu an analysis of the references included in a frequently cited systematic review was conducted to collect information about the protocols. In addition, a preliminary exploration of shiatsu practitioners' perceptions about the differences between shiatsu and acupressure is described. This exploration used videos of shiatsu and acupressure techniques and asked practitioners to comment on their perception of similarity. DISCUSSION: The results identified several key technical differences between the two, including type of pressure applied, the positioning of the thumb, and the way in which body weight is used. Researchers should separate shiatsu and acupressure in their designs and purposively choose one or the other. To facilitate such clarification, we have proposed a definition for shiatsu that may facilitate the differentiation between these two techniques. CONCLUSION: The authors hope to stimulate discussion about the differences between shiatsu and acupressure, and to question the appropriateness of using acupressure studies as evidence of the efficacy of shiatsu. A true understanding of the efficacy of shiatsu cannot be determined until studies use a common definition of shiatsu and discontinue substituting acupressure research for evidence of shiatsu efficacy. When this happens, it is proposed that a clearer picture of the safety, efficacy, and mechanism of action of both shiatsu and acupressure will emerge.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| 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 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 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 teacher head, 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".