Meet the clients where they are without judgment, keep your treatment approach flexible, adapt to their needs, and maintain your personal sense of self so as not to confuse your identity with progress that does not measure up to your ideal. Complicated conditions such as ALS, Parkinson’s, cerebral palsy, or spinal cord injuries typically necessitate management considerations. Other conditions require treatment that permanently alter the soft tissue, such as radiation for cancer. Poorly healed trauma early in life may create havoc as one ages and leave the person confused about what happened to cause the current state of pain.
For example, we may often slow or stall degenerative arthritis and keep the surgeon at bay, but at some point the knee or hip replacement or the spinal fusion may be necessary. Clients are finding their way to us, with or without the direction of their primary care providers, so let’s make sure we are prepared to meet their needs.īut before I go on, I want to address the most common claim I hear us make: “I can fix their pain, not just help them manage it.” While this is true in many instances, and I myself have brought permanent relief to many individuals living with pain when conventional treatments failed, there are myriad degenerative or complicated conditions that may test your skills and your ability to avoid frustration or fall into the trap of blaming the client. The president of the United States the American Medical Association Health and Medicine Division of the National Academics of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine the US military and the US Centers for Disease Control have all called for a reduction in drug use, but what we really need to demand is always trying nonpharmacologic approaches first.7 To ensure the inclusion of massage, movement, and mindfulness-based approaches, we must use current language about “whole-person approaches” and “patient-centered care,” and be fluent in the literature about safety, efficacy, and patient satisfaction to entice physicians to support their patients’ choice to receive massage therapy. There is a growing body of evidence that shows prolonged use of pain medications can worsen pain symptoms and pose substantial risk.5 But a lack of information about massage regarding scope of practice, access (insurance reimbursement), and efficacy leaves pain sufferers seeking alternatives to pharmacology without support or counsel from their primary care providers.6 But pain is rarely fabricated, and pain medications aren’t a long-term solution. Those individuals with chronic pain are often disappointed with conventional medicine.4 Physicians may grow frustrated trying to identify a cause that could inform a treatment plan and end up prescribing anti-depressants and pain medications. According to the World Health Organization, “Chronic pain is one of the most underestimated health-care problems in the world today, causing major consequences for the quality of life of the sufferer and a major burden on the health-care system in the Western world.”2 Estimates are that 1 in 5 adults suffer from pain and that another 1 in 10 adults are diagnosed with chronic pain each year.3įrequently, clients in pain come to bodyworkers as a last resort.
Fear of movement and the resulting isolation eventually make it difficult for the person in pain to reach out for help. Pain is the most common complaint we see in our massage practices today.1 Pain compounds other client issues-elevating stress, altering posture, and reducing one’s ability to participate in daily activities. Massage, Movement & Mindfulness Rising Above the Pain Crisis By Diana L. Massage and Bodywork Magazine for the Visually Impaired - Massage, Movement & Mindfulness Back to Massage and Bodywork Issue List September/October 2016 Issue Back to September/October 2016 Article List
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