Evaluation of Mechanism and Applications of Different Types of Massage in Current Medicine and Traditional Medicine

Massage is one of the ancient therapeutic methods, which has been considered and used by all nations. In the past, massage has been used to maintain health and treat diseases, that has continued until the present time. This review study was performed with the purpose of achieving applications and mechanisms of current and traditional massages. Google Scholar and PubMed Databases, were searched to find out the mechanisms and applications of popular massages and software of Teb Jame (version 1), was used to investigate and search references of Iranian traditional medicine. In this study, 75 articles were obtained from the databases and the contents of 19 books of authentic Iranian medicine books were used and notated. The current massages of tactile massage, classical massage, connective tissue massage, and manual lymphatic drainage therapy, were studied and traditional massages of Tuina, Abhyang, and Dalk, were evaluated and compared with them. The results of this study showed that the mechanism of current massage exists in the traditional massage, but traditional massages have their own special mechanisms based on their medical philosophy. Different types of massages have their own special applications. Dalk can be a comprehensive approach for non-drug prevention and treatment due to its capability to adjust all ages and all temperaments.