Health - Resources and discussion for everything health-related

I looked at the studies, here's my take on each one:

The Effect Of Percussive Therapy On Musculoskeletal Performance And Experiences Of Pain: A Systematic Literature Review https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10069390/ A literature review, which isn't preferable when talking about a treatment in this context. It refers to a relatively small pool of 13 research articles, of which it says "all studies had limitations in methodological quality or reporting of findings", which you don't exactly want to hear, followed by "but still included contextually-rich details that contributed to the overall narrative synthesis", which implies bias on the part of the researchers (why would you write a literature review on a subject with only 13 relevant articles, none of which had a non-limited quality of methodology or findings). Thus, I am excluding this article from the current topic

Acute Effects of Two Massage Techniques on Ankle Joint Flexibility and Power of the Plantar Flexors https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3794491/ Made in 2007, much too old. If this was used in a current literature review, it would be denied. Thus, I am excluding this article from the current topic

Therapeutic effect and safety of Tuina on sciatica https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9191340/ This is a protocol for a systematic review. The researchers are putting forward their methodology for a future research paper. Thus, it has nothing to add to the current topic due to it not showing any results.

Tuina for lumbar disc herniation https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7793356/ This is another protocol for a systematic review. See the above article.

Efficacy of Tuina in patients with chronic low back pain: study protocol for a randomized controlled trial https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7077020/ This study saw applicants split into two groups: one where they were given tuina treatment by a trained professional, and one where they were given an education class on what they can do at home to help their chronic low back pain. The astute among readers may notice a couple problems with this protocol - there's neither a placebo, nor a control group. The two groups they've made a basically receiving completely different forms of treatment, and are unable to be compared at all

It would be much better if the education group was removed, and the following groups were used instead:

First, we must define our independant variable as the type of massage the patients are subjected to

Thus, our dependant variable is the degree to which patients say their pain is relieved

The following groups would be used:

A group that receives no treatment

A group that receives a common form of massage, but not tuina and are told it's not tuina

A group that receives a common form of massage, but they're told it's a tuina massage

A group that receives a tuina massage, but they're told it's not a tuina massage

A group that receives a tuina massage, and they're told it's a tuina massage

To finish off, I must ask-did you read through any of these articles? Of them, two weren't even presenting anything, one was ancient, one was a heavily biased literature review, and the only one that could have been relevant to talk about didn't even attempt to compare tuina massages to other massages.

You've wasted an hour of my life. Congratulations. I'm usually a bit more composed, but unfortunately I'm currently absolutely livid