author(s)
Naglaa EL Mokadem and Amal Nabil Abboud

abstract
Background: Heart failure is a life-threatening condition with a broad-ranging impact, affecting almost every important aspect of patients’ lives. Fatigue has been reported as the most common and distressing symptom associated with heart failure. Also, quality of life in heart failure may be impaired by physical symptoms, psychological problems, adverse treatment effects and social limitations. Massage therapy is widely used to treat patients with different conditions. It has been proven that back massage has a positive effect on improving sleep duration that reduce the physiologic burden on the cardiovascular system, and improving fatigue. Despite the evident that massage therapy has a beneficial effect on fatigue in various populations; however, there is no previous studies examined the effect of massage on fatigue in heart failure patients.