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History of the Touch Research Institute

The Touch Research Institute (TRI) was formally established in 1992 at the University of Miami School of Medicine and is the only center in the world devoted solely to the study of touch and its application in science and medicine. Under the direction of Tiffany Field, Ph.D., TRI's distinguished team of researchers, representing Duke, Harvard, Princeton, McGill, Maryland, and other universities, strives to better define how touch promotes health and contributes to the treatment of disease. Research efforts that began in 1982 and continue today have shown that touch therapy has numerous beneficial effects on human well-being. Specifically, we have shown that massage can induce weight gain in premature infants and alleviates depressive symptoms, reduces stress hormones, alleviates pain and positively alters the immune system in children and adults with various medical conditions.

Current Studies

Relatively little research has been conducted on pediatric pain management despite the crippling effects of pain associated with diseases such as cancer and juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. Traditional medicine relies on the use of medications that alter the body's biochemistry, but pediatricians are understandably reluctant to prescribe potentially addictive drugs. As a result, children with juvenile artheritis are given anti-inflammatory drugs to reduce pain. Because massage therapy release a serotonin-like substance (the primary ingredient in most pain-killers), massage may offset the need for addictive pain medications.

A 30-minute back massage was given daily for 5 days to 52 hospitalized, depressed, and adjustment-disorder children and adolescents. Comparisons with the control group who viewed relaxing video-tapes showed that the massage subjects were not only less depressed and anxious, but stress hormones were decreased. In addition, nurses rated the subjects as being more cooperative, and nighttime sleep patterns improved.

Child abuse, neglect, and drug exposure during pregnancy are rapidly increasing problems and are related to behavioral problems, depression, anxiety, and poor interpersonal relationships among children. TRI has recruited retiree volunteers to massage premature, drug-exposed, failure-to-thrive newborns, orphans and abused children. The results suggest that it may be as beneficial to touch as to be touched. The retirees showed a dramatic decrease in depression, increased feelings of self-worth, improved sleep pattems, and fewer doctor visits, while the children were more responsive following the treatment program.

Job stress is one of the leading problems resulting in lost productivity, decreased corporate profits, and worker's compensation claims. TRI has documented positive effects of massage therapy on job performance and stress reduction at the University of Miami Medical School. A basic 15-minute chair massage provided twice weekly resulted in decreases in job stress and significant increases in productivity. Brain waves were altered in ways that are consistent with enhanced alertness, and simple math computations were completed in half the time, with half the errors following the massage therapy.

Recently, TRI conducted a study on HIV positive men to determine the effects of massage therapy on the immune system. After 45 minutes of massage therapy, five days a week for a month, their anxiety and stress levels decreased, but more significantly, the number of natural killer cells (the first line of defense in the immune system) increased, suggesting they will have fewer opportunistic infections like pneumonia.

Program Summary

Studies conducted at TRI have produced encouraging results including: premature infants develop faster and continue showing the benefits of early massage therapy after one year of life; HIV positive patients experience and immune system boost related to natural killer cell function; and because massage therapy induces the release of a serotonin-like substance found in painkillers, massage may offset the need for addictive and costly pain medications.

Our research efforts have clearly shown that touch therapy can play an important role in treating diverse medical conditions. As the medical community continues to investigate alternatives to conventional therapies, ongoing research regarding touch therapy becomes even more vital. We will continue this important research and invite you to support our effort.

"I have no doubt that people who are well loved from birth to death have less disease. The normal person should live 90 to 100 years and then die. Anything in between should be viewed as an aberration, and if it is an aberration, there is a way to prevent it from happening. I think we are going to prove that touch helps alleviate disease in animals and humans. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people in our society, children for example, who are deprived emotionally as well as physically, and there are whole sets of diseases that come from that deprivation."

James Burke
Former CEO, Johnson & Johnson
President, Partnership for a Drug Free America
Member, Board of Directors, TRI

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