A study conducted at the Competence Center for Naturopathic Medicine at the University Hospital of Jena (UKJ) has now been able to show that expert foot reflexology can help with mild knee osteoarthritis. Within the scope of a doctoral thesis, Catharina Güttner thereby examined the effectiveness of foot reflex zone therapy on the sensation of pain and the mobility of the diseased joint in 30 patients with moderately severe knee joint arthrosis.
Implementation and results of the study
For six weeks, the subjects each received twelve treatments, a therapeutic massage of the corresponding foot reflex zones – this zone is roughly located in the rear heel area. The patients’ personal judgment of their pain sensation was asked as well as their pain intensity was measured. At the same time, the bending ability of the diseased knee was tested and compared.
“In both aspects, significant improvements were seen during and after foot reflexology therapy: Pain intensity decreased by more than two-thirds and the mobility of the knee joint was improved by 12 degrees,” explains Prof. Dr. Christine Uhlemann, supervisor of the work. Almost all patients (92 percent) said their condition had improved after the study was completed.
The data suggest that the effectiveness of foot reflexology therapy goes beyond a placebo effect. “Rest pain, the intensity of pain that occurs even when the knee is not strained, actually decreased to zero after therapy.” At reference points, areas not stimulated by foot reflexology therapy, pain perception did not change.
Not always effective, but beneficial
But there were also other results, for example from Great Britain: Foot reflexology massage, for example, is popular for treating patients with irritable bowel syndrome. A 2002 study found that this treatment does no more than any foot massage. Researchers led by Philip Tovey of the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom subjected 34 patients with irritable bowel syndrome to foot reflexology massage (Brit J of General Practice 52, 2002, 19). Half of the patients were treated with targeted massage to the intestinal reflex points of the foot, and the other half were treated with nonspecific “placebo massage” to the whole foot.
After six massage sessions over a three-week period, there were no significant differences between the two groups in terms of symptoms of upper abdominal pain, bloating, and constipation or diarrhea. Massage had little therapeutic effect in either group. The weakness of foot reflexology is probably mainly that it is not possible to assign exactly which zones of the foot are related to which parts of the body. Because all findings are mainly experience.
Nevertheless, almost all patients find a foot massage beneficial, relaxing and sometimes pain relieving. An effect against pain could result according to the so-called principle of “counter stimulus”. By pressing on painful areas of the foot, a stimulus is created that temporarily cancels other pain stimuli in the body. This principle is also known in the anti-pain effect of acupuncture.
