Focus on Alternative and Complementary Therapies
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Focus Alternat Complement Ther©2005 Pharmaceutical Press
Focus Altern Complement Ther 2003; 8: 504
The aim of this review was to evaluate the available literature concerning the effect of reflexology on sleep quality.
A literature search was performed using Pubmed, Medline, AMED and Cinahl. Initially, a systematic review was carried out using the search terms insomnia, sleep and reflexology. As these search terms resulted in only one foreign language paper a review of all papers found under the search term reflexology was carried out. These papers were assessed and included in this review if the outcome measures included sleep quality. Details of each study (e.g. study design, subject numbers, treatment duration, and outcome measures) were displayed in table form.
Eight papers were identified, which used sleep quality as an outcome measure. Two of these papers were RCTs, one was a control trial, three were audits and two papers reported on case studies. The main aim of the studies was to determine the effects of reflexology on the quality of life and symptoms of people with cancer, multiple sclerosis, arthritis, mental health problems and following abdominal surgery. Although measured subjectively, the majority of the studies found an improvement in sleep quality following reflexology.
The quality and range of information available for reflexology and sleep quality is diverse. No study has specifically investigated the effectiveness of this therapy on sleep. The available literature suggests that reflexology may be worth investigating as an approach to improving the quality of sleep in people who suffer from sleep disturbances.
