The Effectiveness of Massage Therapy on Healing of Diabetic Neuropathy in Diabetes Mellitus Patients

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Diabetic neuropathy reduces the patient’s quality of life and the quality of diabetes management itself and, as a result, worsens the prognosis of other diabetic complications. Various complaints that are often felt by diabetes mellitus (DM) patients due to neuropathy include pain in the legs, numbness, and weakness in the affected leg, paresthesia, or numbness, and the absence of tendon reflexes in the affected leg. AIM: This study aimed to determine the effectiveness of electric massage therapy on neuropathy healing in DM patients. METHODS: The pre-test and post-test experimental design without a control group was employed. Patients with neuropathy diabetic were recruited as the subject of the study. The total number of participants in the study was 30 people. All the subjects were assessed for neuropathy using the neuropathy assessment instrument and the monofilament test. The Kolmogorov–Smirnov test was employed to analyze the normality of the data. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test was employed for non-normally distributed data. The study used a 95% confidence interval, and significance was assessed at alpha <0.05. RESULTS: Mean difference test resulted that the Z value was −4.791; (p < 0.01). These results indicate that there was a statistically significant difference in the level of neuropathy before and after the massage therapy intervention. CONCLUSIONS: Foot massage therapy has a significant effect in reducing the complaints of diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DPN). It is recommended for the DPN patients to conduct foot massage independently regularly as an alternative treatment in-home care treatment.