Effects of massage for prevention of pressure ulcers

The purpose of this study was to determine whether standard massage (30 seconds) and extended massage (60 seconds) affected skin temperature of patients who had undergone fractured hip surgery. A convenience sample of 20 patients between 66 and 97 years of age who had fractured hip surgery were randomly assigned to one of the two treatment groups. Evaluation of the effects of massage were made through measures of daily skin temperatures taken at the sacral site of each patient postoperatively for four days. A repeated measures analysis of variance showed a main effect for day (F [3, 53] = 7.26, p = .01), location (F [1, 53] = 8.83, p = .01), and an interaction between group and day (F [3, 53] = 5.83, p less than .01). Orthogonal contrasts of means showed that skin temperature on day 1 was significantly higher than days 2, 3, and 4 (T = [J, J (n-1)] = 4.21, p less than .001). Subjects who received extended massage had a significant decrease in skin temperature as opposed to those who received standard massage.