Massage helped the elderly individuals in the study to
physically and psychologically relax, which shortened the
time it took them to fall asleep and increased their habitual
sleep efficiency, so that they felt more rested. This may
have caused them to perceive that they had better subjective
sleep quality. It is suggested that those who felt better
rested were able to carry out their daily activities more
easily, thus decreasing their daytime dysfunction scores.
Massage did not change the duration of sleep (Table 2).
The quality of sleep is more important that the duration in
terms of providing rest (Ersser et al., 1999).
The result of this study accords with the literature.
In this research was found that back massage treatment
was effective in improving sleep not only on the global
PSQI score, but also on four of the five component subscales
of the PSQI. In the examination of the effect of
massage on the PSQI components it was determined that it
decreased scores (i.e. had a positive effect) for subjective
sleep quality, sleep latency, habitual sleep efficiency, and
daytime dysfunction (Table 2).