Home Based Massage and Relaxation for Sickle Cell Pain

National Institutes of Health (NIH)

Status and phase

Completed

Phase 2

Conditions

Sickle Cell Disease

Treatments

Procedure: massage

Behavioral: relaxation

Study type

Interventional

Funder types

NIH

Identifiers

NCT00066079

R21AT001078-01A1

Details and patient eligibility

About

The purpose of this study is to compare the effects of in-home, family-administered massage and in-home relaxation training on measures of physical status and health care utilization in a sample of African American adolescents age 15 years and older and adults with chronic pain associated with sickle cell disease who have been randomly assigned to six sessions of either family-administered massage or progressive muscle relaxation training.

Sex

All

Ages

15 to 65 years old

Volunteers

No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

Medically diagnosed with sickle cell disease, including hemoglobin SS disease, hemoglobin SD disease, hemoglobin SC disease, or sickle-thalassemia
Self-report of having experienced chronic pain related to sickle cell disease during the past 30 days.
Availability of a family member or friend who agrees to be trained to administer massages if the participant is randomized to the massage arm of the study.

Exclusion criteria

Sickle cell trait instead of sickle cell disease diagnosis.
Diagnosis of disease in addition to sickle cell disease which requires regular use of pain medication. (Please note, regular use of pain medication for sickle cell pain is NOT an exclusion)