Serum cortisol evaluation of back massage effect for students having stiffness shoulder before the national examination for clinical laboratory technician

National Examination is held once a year at the end of every February. Once students pass the test, they can keep license throughout their lives without renewing it. The aim of this study is to investigate effects of back massage for people who complaint of stress symptoms such as stiffness shoulder and low back pain that were heard frequently. Subjects of this study are senior students of a clinical laboratory technician university. Since they study hard preparing for the test for more than nine months, they complain of such symptoms before the examination. They were inspected by the measurements of plasma cortisol, marker of stress evaluation, hardness measurement of musculus trapezius, evaluation of hardness of biological tissue, and visual analog scale (VAS). Consequently, the following points became clarified. 1) Values of objective evaluation methods using measuring plasma cortisol and hardness of muscular trapezius were alleviated significantly after the massage. 2) Self-evaluation using VAS was changed before and after the massage. Therefore, the study suggests that the massage has a benefit on students preparing for the examination and relieving their stress.