Massage Therapy: A Person Centred Approach to Chronic Pain

Person-centred care is an emergent movement within evidence-based medi-cine that has the potential to transform the health care system. Person-centred care is a collaborative approach in which health care professionals partner with patients to co-design and deliver personalized care with a focus on physical comfort, emo-tional well-being, and patient empower-ment. By embracing person-centred care through two-way communication, patient engagement, and self-management strat-egies, massage therapists have the poten-tial to further reduce suffering associated with chronic pain in our society.

INTRODUCTION

A Person-Centred Approach as an Enhancement to Evidence-Based Medicine

In the 1990’s, David Sackett and Gordon Guyatt introduced evidence-based medicine as the conscientious use of current best evidence in making decisions about patient care. Evidence-based medicine (also known as evidence-based practice) is a process intended to reduce the risk of harm and improve decision-making by emphasizing the use of evidence from well-designed research. This includes the use of logical reasoning, and the gathering of ideas and knowledge from many overlapping disciplines. The enduring contributions of this movement are three principles of evidence-based practice (best available evidence, clinical expertise, and patient values) that are transforming health care. A definition of terms is provided in the Glossary of Terms for Massage Therapists (Table 1).