Acute Effect of Foot Reflexology Massage on Heart Rate Variability and Arterial Pulse Waveform

University of Taipei

Status: Completed

Conditions: Aerobic Exercise; Massage; Anaerobic Exercise

Treatments: Other: Foot reflexology massage

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT03821805

UT-IRB-2016-017

Details and patient eligibility

About

Foot reflexology treatment provides acute and chronic effects on cardiovascular and hemodynamic functions. However, no information is available to us in regarding the treatment effect of foot reflexology after exercise. This study investigated the acute effect of foot reflexology treatment on heart rate variability after anaerobic-based and aerobic-based intermittent exercises.

Full description

The sympathetic activation and sympathy-vagal balance after repeat sprint performance can be immediately modulated by foot reflexology massage. The acute benefits of foot reflexology intervention on cardiac sympathovagal balance can be considered as exercise recovery strategies in sports.

Enrollment: 28 patients

Sex: Male

Ages: 18 to 30 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Undertake football/futsal training at least 3 times a week
• Age between 18 and 30 years old

Exclusion criteria

• History of severe neuromuscular injury
• Current lower extremity injury
• Current neurological diseases

Trial design

Primary purpose: Basic Science

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

---

28 participants in 2 patient groups

Foot reflexology massage group

Experimental group

Description:

The duration of intervention was 30 min (15 min massage duration for each leg)

Treatment:

Other: Foot reflexology massage

Control group

No Intervention group

Description:

Rest for 30 min