Massage Therapy for Patients With Cancer

Massage therapy is one of the oldest healthcare practices still in current use. Chinese medical texts refer to its use more than 4,000 years ago, and Hippocrates wrote about “rubbing,” the ancient Greek term for massage (Greene, 2000). The foundation of contemporary massage therapy dates back to the mid-18th century. A Swede, Per Henrik Ling, developed it as a system of exercise that was both active and passive. With support from the Swedish government, Ling began to teach these methods at the Royal Central Gymnastic Institute, and these methods, known as “medical gymnastics” and “Swedish movement cure,” eventually became known as Swedish massage (Greene).