Similarities and Differences in East Asian Massage and Bodywork Therapies: A Critical Review

Several manual bodywork therapies that originated in Asia are related to the theory and practice of acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). One of the aims of these therapies is to stimulate specific points on the body called acupoints which are the same points in which needles are inserted in acupuncture. These manual therapies, however, vary in their interpretation and explanation of the theories of TCM, and even more so, in the practical way the stimulation is applied. The aim of this paper is to clarify these differences and show how future research can benefit from specifying the actual techniques used. This paper analyses and compares research papers, textbooks, articles, official definitions and demonstrations of the techniques to highlight the similarities and differences, and examines instances in research in which the techniques were not clearly differentiated. There are many instances in the research literature in which references from one of these practices, or from acupuncture itself, has been used as evidence for other manual therapies conflating the evidence. As far as it is known, nobody has proved that inserting a needle or applying electric stimulation on a specific point on the body has the same physiological effects as pressing with a finger. Nobody has proved that applying stationary pressure has the same effect as kneading that point. However, some research papers seem to use all these techniques interchangeably. Research would benefit from accuracy in the reporting of physiological effects of East Asian manual therapies.