Providing massage therapy for people with advanced cancer: what to expect.

There is very little information in the literature to prepare massage therapists for what they might expect when they provide treatment to people with advanced cancer in hospice or palliative care. We report an analysis of a subset of data collected from a large multi-site clinical trial of the efficacy of massage therapy for people with advanced cancer. This is the first analysis of empirical data of patient presentation, massage treatment environment, and the characteristics of massage provided for this population.