Massage and adaptation

My wife suffers from a bad back. When she was a child, she had multiple surgeries in an attempt to correct the problem. They were successful for the most part, but the surgeon advised her parents that she would have back trouble in the future.
The future has come a little sooner than she thought.
In the process of moving, Sandra has discovered that there are many things she could do five years ago (when she last moved) that she cannot do now. While cleaning cupboards and reaching for items, she has gotten aches in places she has never had them before.
I am trying to do my best to look after her, as depressed as she is by the whole situation.
The most effective thing I can do for her is massage. It's a skill I picked up as a teenager, given a mother prone to migraine headaches.
The trick to a really good massage is to find the spot that is the source of the pain. Sometimes that isn't as easy as it sounds. For example, an ache in the legs is most often the result of tension on either end. Massage could be required in the feet, or at the small of the back. Sometimes I think a little study of the Chinese art of acupressure would be of benefit in the attempt at pain relief.
The other thing about giving a massage is a good sense of touch. Quite often what is under your fingers will tell you a lot about what is going on under the skin. Heavily calloused hands will never be capable of a proper massage. You have to feel the muscles responding to your touch, otherwise, you could just do more damage.
Some people make the mistake of trying to manipulate the spine or other bones. That is ALWAYS a no-no. Messing with a person's skeletal structure is just asking to put them in traction for a month. Unless you are trained, don't even try.
Which brings us to the amount of pressure that should be used. That varies, depending on the location of the pain (both relative to where you are massaging and to sensitive organs), how severe the pain is and how deeply into the tissue you want to massage. A relaxing massage requires surprisingly little pressure. It's more about applying warmth than anything else. Use just enough pressure to feel the muscle layers under the skin, and keep the fingers moving at all times. When dealing with major arthritis pain, it may be necessary to rub a particular spot harder. Especially if the joint in question is deep in. Again, avoid using so much pressure that you run the risk of actually hurting internal organs.
In the case of my wife, massage is really only a stop-gap measure, at least at the level that I am capable of. If I were rich, I'd send her to a spa and let the professionals do the job. The best that I can hope for is that I can relieve the more severe aches, and that the doctor can give her some medication that will work to keep her quality of life as high as possible.
We have to learn to accept that as we get along in life, there are some things that we just won't be able to do. As I learn these thing, my goal is to find a way around them. As Grissom once said on CSI, "If the world won't adapt to you, you adapt to the world."