OBJECTIVES: The aim of our research was to compare the symptoms of the musculoskeletal system of the medical- and sport masseurs.

METHODS: Altogether 58 medical- and sport masseurs completed the survey in our research. The examination has been carried out for 4 months, in Hungary. 45 out of the 58 participants, 77.59% had an issue with their musculoskeletal system in the past 12 months.

RESULTS: Our first presumption has proven true, that among medical- and sport masseurs, hand and wrist problems are the most common, because 74,14% had an issue with their hands or wrists in the last one year. The other research was about to estimate the frequency of pain on each regions of the hand. The assumption in this case seemed also right, most of the symptoms were caused by the „thenar” area, where 39,66% of the participants indicated pain on the right hand, while 31,03% on the left. Our third hypothesis has been verified partly, because there were significantly more waist symptoms in medical masseurs compared to sport masseurs (p=0,0001), however there were no significant difference in wrist pain between the two groups (p=0,95). We also observed the difference in the musculoskeletal system symptoms between male and female gender. This assumption did not show any essential difference (p=0.8521). Our last assumption has been refuted, because our results showed that only 50% of the participants suffered from low back pain, while according to the specialized literature, this rate is about 60-85% in the society.

CONCLUSIONS: The musculoskeletal system symptoms could be easily prevented, if people would comply with the joint protection rules and would practice muscle strengthening exercises every week.