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October 8, 2009

More Than Skin Deep

As massage therapy becomes more accepted as an adjunct to allopathic medicine, therapists will encounter more and more medically complicated clients. As a result, it is becoming more important than ever to be informed about as many pathological conditions as possible. Along with clients who have pathological conditions comes pharmaceutical medication.

If your massage school did not prepare you for this changing customer base, it is up to the massage therapist to become informed about medical conditions and the prescription medications that many clients take, so that you know how to handle them responsibly.

There are plenty of great resources out there to get you started. You may want to begin with a nice review or overview by taking a continuing education course. A good place to start is by looking through professional journals, your state board, or the national certification sites.

There are plenty of books out there to geared toward massage therapists designed to help you get an overview of pathology or prescription medications, and whether massage is okay or contraindicated for a given condition or medication. In fact, I found the Pharmocology in Rehabilitation book for my physical therapy education to be very readable and a great resource that I plan to refer back to.

And don't forget the internet. If you're lucky enough to have an internet connection right in your massage office, you can quickly go to some key site for medical conditions or pharmaceutical information for free. One of the best ways I learned about various pathologies was from having clients come in for a massage who also had a medical condition, say a neuroma on the bottom of their foot. At the end of the day, I would go home and look up the condition so that I knew a little more about it and figure out what my skills would allow me to do with this client to help them. In fact, much of what I found sparked my interest in sharing my information and experiences with other massage therapists and voila, my massage blog was born.

tags: massage massagetherapy wellness massage therapy bodywork health

Posted by linda at October 8, 2009 3:59 PM