My friend (and client) Marcia, who has MS, checked with her doctor about getting massage to help with MS, and he said, "by all means, please do." I hope the health care reforms will provide insurance coverage for prevention, including receiving beneficial massage to help with pain, anxiety, flexibility, and lots of other benefits. Marcia is one of the people I'll be riding for in the MSBike ride in October.
She shared with me the following article from MS Perspectives (Spring issue, p. 13)
Focus On ... Massage Therapy for MS
There are few things in this world that are more relaxing than a massage. But beyond the spa-like aspect, massage therapy can offer relief from symptoms of multiple sclerosis (MS).
According to Leigh Broschat, a licensed Atlanta, Georgia massage and neuromuscular therapist, studies have shown that massage therapy can improve mood, lower anxiety, ease the pins-and-needles sensation known as paresthesias, reduce muscle spasms, and lessen pain in people with MS. "Bodywork helps to relax the mind and body," she notes, "so it can improve a person's quality of life."
Broschat begins sessions by asking her clients to rate that day's pain level on a scale of 1 (no pain) to 10 (severe pain) and indicate the most painful areas. As she works on the body, she checks in with clients to find out if the bodywork is increasing or decreasing their pain. "This is why I do this work," she says. "If I can reduce pain from a 10 to a 5, that makes a client's day better."
Broschat strongly advises signing on with bodywork specialists who are familiar with MS. "Pain levels can change quickly in MS· patients, they can become overheated, and they typically require shorter sessions than other people because they get tired more easily, so you need a therapist who can watch for those things and alter the bodywork to suit your individual needs," she says .
Finding a massage therapist ...
· Ask an MS practitioner for a referral
· Visit the websites of the Associated Bodywork and Massage Professionals (www.abmp.com)
and the American Massage Therapy Association (www.amtamassage.org)
o find the names of licensed professionals near you
• Contact a local certified school of massage
Questions to ask ...
· Do you know what MS is?
· Have you worked with people with MS before?
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Massage in Hospitals
A few weeks ago I was filling in for the regular massage therapist at Bon Secours St. Francis Hospital in downtown Greenville while she and her family were on vacation. In part because I'm certified in oncology massage, I was called to fill in.
Over four days, I saw a number of patients who were being cared for with heart problems, pneumonia, bone marrow transplants or complications thereof, dementia, and a number of other conditions. I first went to the rooms where the patient or family member requested the massage therapist, either through a chaplain or a nurse, and then went through a list that the spiritual care team puts together for folks who might benefit. I checked in with each nurse before going in. Sometimes the patients were sleeping or just didn't want a massage. Most of the massages were around 10-15 minutes, either gently massaging shoulders and neck or feet and lower legs.
A couple notable patients--one was an older gentleman who had played bluegrass all of his life. When I arrived in his room, the physical therapist was trying to get him to walk, but he was afraid of falling so he refused. When I asked if he'd like a massage, he quickly said "yes!" This became an opportunity to work with the p/t to come back after the massage and hopefully his legs feeling better to get him to walk. I played some bluegrass music from my IPOD player while working on him and that cheered him up.
Another patient who was in for some followup from a bone marrow transplant enjoyed the foot and leg massage I gave her the first day that her friend later told me it was all she had talked about. Now think about that--you're in the hospital, and your main focus is on the nice massage you received. Kinda makes you think every hospital should incorporate it in their care program. Maybe someday...
Over four days, I saw a number of patients who were being cared for with heart problems, pneumonia, bone marrow transplants or complications thereof, dementia, and a number of other conditions. I first went to the rooms where the patient or family member requested the massage therapist, either through a chaplain or a nurse, and then went through a list that the spiritual care team puts together for folks who might benefit. I checked in with each nurse before going in. Sometimes the patients were sleeping or just didn't want a massage. Most of the massages were around 10-15 minutes, either gently massaging shoulders and neck or feet and lower legs.
A couple notable patients--one was an older gentleman who had played bluegrass all of his life. When I arrived in his room, the physical therapist was trying to get him to walk, but he was afraid of falling so he refused. When I asked if he'd like a massage, he quickly said "yes!" This became an opportunity to work with the p/t to come back after the massage and hopefully his legs feeling better to get him to walk. I played some bluegrass music from my IPOD player while working on him and that cheered him up.
Another patient who was in for some followup from a bone marrow transplant enjoyed the foot and leg massage I gave her the first day that her friend later told me it was all she had talked about. Now think about that--you're in the hospital, and your main focus is on the nice massage you received. Kinda makes you think every hospital should incorporate it in their care program. Maybe someday...
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Healing Touch
a powerful article about the benefits of massage for recovery from injury. I pulled this from the AMTA website:
By Diana Lund
You can’t fully imagine how bad it was. After I was in a car crash, my continual pulse of thoughts stopped dead. The only time I could generate an idea was in reaction to an event, such as when a person asked me a question, or when I tripped and fell. Otherwise, I lived in internal silence. But one day while getting a massage, in my fifth year of recovery, fluidity of thought returned! Now, in my tenth year of massage treatments, I recall my introduction to therapeutic massage and its role in my revitalization.
In a makeshift room of curtain walls, a month after the four-car collision had taken away my mental and physical prowess, a physical therapist evaluated my body. After moving my arms, legs, and head every which way, as much as tension and pain would allow, she told me, “I can’t work with you.”
“I’m permanently damaged?” I wondered.
“Your body is so stiff, my only choice is to send you to massage. For about a month.”
I’d been in a neck brace the first three days after the accident, and when it came off, I’d lost several degrees of neck rotation. The only way I could back up a car was by using mirrors. My right leg was a little shorter than my left leg, and my right arm couldn’t reach a glass on a shelf at eye level. In the third week, as my body shock began to wear off, an all-consuming, muscle-wrenching, eye-watering pain commenced.
At the rehabilitation clinic, the physical therapist handed me off to Cathy, an amiable, relaxed massage therapist. Soon, I was lying on my back, Cathy’s hands kneading my neck, shoulder, and upper back.
While she worked, Cathy reported, “Neck muscles—tight. Shoulder blades—tight. Trapezius—very tight.” Unlike other massages I’d had over the years—I’d been a recreational soccer forward who’d occasionally had massages to soothe overworked muscles—this one didn’t approach nirvana.
Instead, my soft tissue responded like a giant knot in an evenly-matched tug of war. It didn’t have much give. It fought manipulation. Even though Cathy touched me carefully, I winced from the contact and yipped repeatedly. Sweat soaked the underlying sheet. Experiencing more pain than pleasure, I willed the session to end.
I didn’t want to skip the massage. I just wanted its end results faster. When the half-hour was up, my body seemed a little looser.
That day, my physical therapist recorded: “Goals: pain-free cervical range of motion . . . [and] pain-free . . . shoulders, neck, lower back . . . at rest. Was involved in an MVA [motor vehicle accident]. Had concussion. Communication is strained due to cognitive/memory difficulty.”
I must have arrived late to my next appointment because I could no longer track time, and instead depended on chance that I would glance at my schedule around the time I was supposed to leave. Having lost the ability to spontaneously think about the future, I didn’t feel any apprehension upon arrival at the clinic. When Cathy greeted me, I didn’t recognize her, but I probably pretended to know her. The manipulation mirrored my previous one—painful.
Each session repeated until I eventually remembered Cathy, the pain, the relief from pain. Soon, physical therapy began in conjunction with massage. Over months of appointments, I saw many physiotherapists. Like an opening flower, my body’s tension unwound and my brain’s functioning improved.
© 2006 JupiterImages Corporation
Craniosacral massage involves finding and correcting cerebral and spinal imbalances or blockages that may cause sensory, motor or intellectual dysfunction.
After two years, my home exercise regimen was sufficient and I didn’t need to go to physical therapy anymore. But I continued on with another massage therapist, Wes, an amazing rejuvenator. He introduced me to craniosacral therapy, a rhythmic scalp massage and gentle pulling of the hair. Afterward, I sensed a freeness to my brain, like it had been lubed and my neurons’ signals flowed better.
It was in the middle of one of Wes’s sessions that fluidity of thought returned to me. On another breakthrough day, after an hour’s session, my night vision suddenly improved and I could drive during darkness again! And Wes also finished what my physical therapist had started. He got my right arm to extend above my head—something a doctor initially told me I would never regain.
Massage brings pleasure again and I owe the massage therapy community a debt of gratitude for their part in my condition’s improvement, and for accelerating the return of keen thought required to write. Thank you for staying with me for a decade, performing miracles I’d not dreamt possible.
Diana Lund is a freelance writer living in the Chicago area. She is author of the memoir Remind Me Why I'm Here: Sifting through Sudden Loss of Memory and Judgment. To read more about her work, visit www.dianalundwriter.com.
By Diana Lund
You can’t fully imagine how bad it was. After I was in a car crash, my continual pulse of thoughts stopped dead. The only time I could generate an idea was in reaction to an event, such as when a person asked me a question, or when I tripped and fell. Otherwise, I lived in internal silence. But one day while getting a massage, in my fifth year of recovery, fluidity of thought returned! Now, in my tenth year of massage treatments, I recall my introduction to therapeutic massage and its role in my revitalization.
In a makeshift room of curtain walls, a month after the four-car collision had taken away my mental and physical prowess, a physical therapist evaluated my body. After moving my arms, legs, and head every which way, as much as tension and pain would allow, she told me, “I can’t work with you.”
“I’m permanently damaged?” I wondered.
“Your body is so stiff, my only choice is to send you to massage. For about a month.”
I’d been in a neck brace the first three days after the accident, and when it came off, I’d lost several degrees of neck rotation. The only way I could back up a car was by using mirrors. My right leg was a little shorter than my left leg, and my right arm couldn’t reach a glass on a shelf at eye level. In the third week, as my body shock began to wear off, an all-consuming, muscle-wrenching, eye-watering pain commenced.
At the rehabilitation clinic, the physical therapist handed me off to Cathy, an amiable, relaxed massage therapist. Soon, I was lying on my back, Cathy’s hands kneading my neck, shoulder, and upper back.
While she worked, Cathy reported, “Neck muscles—tight. Shoulder blades—tight. Trapezius—very tight.” Unlike other massages I’d had over the years—I’d been a recreational soccer forward who’d occasionally had massages to soothe overworked muscles—this one didn’t approach nirvana.
Instead, my soft tissue responded like a giant knot in an evenly-matched tug of war. It didn’t have much give. It fought manipulation. Even though Cathy touched me carefully, I winced from the contact and yipped repeatedly. Sweat soaked the underlying sheet. Experiencing more pain than pleasure, I willed the session to end.
I didn’t want to skip the massage. I just wanted its end results faster. When the half-hour was up, my body seemed a little looser.
That day, my physical therapist recorded: “Goals: pain-free cervical range of motion . . . [and] pain-free . . . shoulders, neck, lower back . . . at rest. Was involved in an MVA [motor vehicle accident]. Had concussion. Communication is strained due to cognitive/memory difficulty.”
I must have arrived late to my next appointment because I could no longer track time, and instead depended on chance that I would glance at my schedule around the time I was supposed to leave. Having lost the ability to spontaneously think about the future, I didn’t feel any apprehension upon arrival at the clinic. When Cathy greeted me, I didn’t recognize her, but I probably pretended to know her. The manipulation mirrored my previous one—painful.
Each session repeated until I eventually remembered Cathy, the pain, the relief from pain. Soon, physical therapy began in conjunction with massage. Over months of appointments, I saw many physiotherapists. Like an opening flower, my body’s tension unwound and my brain’s functioning improved.
© 2006 JupiterImages Corporation
Craniosacral massage involves finding and correcting cerebral and spinal imbalances or blockages that may cause sensory, motor or intellectual dysfunction.
After two years, my home exercise regimen was sufficient and I didn’t need to go to physical therapy anymore. But I continued on with another massage therapist, Wes, an amazing rejuvenator. He introduced me to craniosacral therapy, a rhythmic scalp massage and gentle pulling of the hair. Afterward, I sensed a freeness to my brain, like it had been lubed and my neurons’ signals flowed better.
It was in the middle of one of Wes’s sessions that fluidity of thought returned to me. On another breakthrough day, after an hour’s session, my night vision suddenly improved and I could drive during darkness again! And Wes also finished what my physical therapist had started. He got my right arm to extend above my head—something a doctor initially told me I would never regain.
Massage brings pleasure again and I owe the massage therapy community a debt of gratitude for their part in my condition’s improvement, and for accelerating the return of keen thought required to write. Thank you for staying with me for a decade, performing miracles I’d not dreamt possible.
Diana Lund is a freelance writer living in the Chicago area. She is author of the memoir Remind Me Why I'm Here: Sifting through Sudden Loss of Memory and Judgment. To read more about her work, visit www.dianalundwriter.com.
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