and/or aims): The applicant proposes to determine efficacy of non-pharmalogical treatment combined with antiretroviral medication in improving immune system function in persons with advanced HIV. Also, he will determine whether active or passive methods in non-pharmalogical therapy are effective in improving the immune system in persons with advanced HIV. Specifically, the applicant proposes to determine where massage therapy in combination with one antiretroviral medication will improve the immune system as measured by CD4, natural killer cells and interferon alpha levels in persons with advanced HIV. Also, he will determine whether a combination of massage and exercise along with one antiretroviral medication or massage and stress management along with one antiretroviral medication will improve the immune system as measured by CD4, natural killer cells and interferon alpha levels in persons with advanced HIV. Forty male and female subjects with CD4 levels between 300-600 microliter (uL) will be recruited from the Infectious Disease Clinic at the Medical College of Ohio. All subjects will undergo prescreening cardiopulmonary problems. The pre-testing will include a Graded Exercise test with electrocardiogram (ECG), oxygen uptake monitoring and blood draw for determination of CD4 levels and percent, natural killer cell levels and interferon alpha levels. After pre- testing, the 40 subjects will be equally and randomly assigned to four different groups: (1) a control group which will not receive any treatment; (2) a massage therapy group only; (3) a massage and exercise group; and (4) a massage and stress management counseling group.All subjects will receive 12 weeks of therapy. At the conclusion of the 12 weeks of therapy, post-testing will be done in a similar manner to what was described previously for the pre- testing procedures. A four by two design utilizing analysis of variance (ANOVA) with repeated measures will be used for statistical treatment of the data. The 0.05 level of significance will be used to reject the null hypothesis.
| Birk, T J; McGrady, A; MacArthur, R D et al. (2000) The effects of massage therapy alone and in combination with other complementary therapies on immune system measures and quality of life in human immunodeficiency virus. J Altern Complement Med 6:405-14 |
