Bodywork (alternative medicine)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bodywork is a term used in alternative medicine to describe any therapeutic or healing work which involves some form of touching or physical manipulation of physical body.
One form of bodywork is massage therapy, and the terms massage and bodywork are often used interchangeably. However, while bodywork includes all forms of massage, it also includes many other types of touch and healing therapies such as yoga and chiropractic, for example. Any activity which invoves the application of pressure or vibration to the soft tissues of the body, including muscles, connective tissue, tendons, ligaments, and joints, may be termed bodywork.
In "More Than One-Third of U.S. Adults Use Complementary and Alternative Medicine, According to New Government Survey", a May 2004 press release by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), and the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) reported on a survey conducted as part of the 2002 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The survey, titled "Complementary and Alternative Medicine Use Among Adults: United States, 2002 (.pdf), reported on who used complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), what was used, and why it was used.
According to the survey, when prayer used specifically for health reasons was included in the data, 62% of adults used some form of CAM therapy during 2002. Among the ten most common complimentary and alternative therapies used in the United States in 2002 were chiropractic care, yoga, and massage. When prayer was included, meditation and chiropractic virtually tied for the sixth most commonly used therapies (7.6% and 7.5%, respectively); yoga and massage tied for 7th place (5%). When the data for prayer-based therapies was excluded, 36% of adults used some form of CAM. Of the remaining practices, natural products (18.9%), previously in third place, was the most common. Deep-breathing exercises (11.6%), previously in fourth place, ranked as the second most common; meditation and chiropractic were third, and yoga and massage fourth.
Consistent with previous studies, the survey found that the majority of individuals (54.9%) used CAM in conjunction with conventional medicine.
