POSSIBILITIES OF EEG DIAGNOSTICS FOR EVALUATION OF THE MASSAGE EFFECTS

ABSTRACT Massage refers to a wide range of techniques such as effleurage, petrissage, tapping, friction, and vibration, yielding pressure on soft tissues done manually or with devices. Nowadays, massage is widely used in everyday life, sport, and medical care as a complementary and alternative therapy. Although its millenniums of use, there is very little research on its effects on health and disease conditions. As one of the main reasons for this can be pointed out, research methods, most of which need special equipment, and different professionals, are subjective or invasive. Recently, some studies have assessed the physical and physiological effects of massage, such as electroencephalography (EEG). EEG is a rapidly non-invasive test that provides evidence of how the brain functions over time. EEG matured over the decades due to advances in technology. Now it has greater sensitivity, digital recording on hard drives, allowing different processing, and are developed consumer-grade devices, which provide easier obtaining of EEG signals outside of the traditional laboratory settings. Advanced dry wireless headsets enable the use of EEG diagnostic in a natural environment at home, working place, sports halls, fields, etc. EEG has been used for the evaluation of effectiveness and in the comparison between different massage processes. Research investigating the physiological effects of massage therapy with EEG has suggested that massage therapy reduces anxiety, increases frontal delta activity, decreases frontal alpha and beta activity, shifts frontal alpha asymmetry from right-hemisphere dominance to left-hemisphere dominance, increases resting-state alpha activity in the left anterior cingulate cortex, etc. Conclusion: Together, these findings provide evidence that massage therapy acts to modulate EEG activity and that EEG diagnostic can be a useful non-invasive, and accurate, objective research method for investigation and illustration of massage therapy effects.