Complementary therapies for chronic knee pain: A placebo-controlled RCT of Reiki and mindfulness.
Complementary Therapies in Medicine December 1, 2025 Adam W. Hanley, Yoshio Nakamura, Robert R Edwards et al.
Both Reiki and mindfulness meditation significantly reduced knee osteoarthritis symptoms compared to doing nothing, with over half of participants in those groups reporting a clinically meaningful reduction of more than 30% in symptoms after just four weekly 30-minute sessions. The improvements from mindfulness were significantly better than those from a sham Reiki procedure, while Reiki's effects were comparable to mindfulness. The study involved 164 adults with physician-confirmed knee osteoarthritis and had high retention and successful blinding, supporting the reliability of the results. These findings suggest that both therapies may be effective, well-tolerated, and time-efficient options for managing knee osteoarthritis pain.