Touchpoints: A Massage Therapy Blog

If you missed last week's Information Night, you missed a great event with featured speakers Dr. Randy Swenson, our Dean, and Massage Envy owner, Jan Gentner!

The hit of the night, as usual, was our cadaver demonstration. Because our students spend a good deal of time studying anatomy on cadavers, it's important for them to get to view a body and hear about how instrumental this learning tool will be in their future studies.

Our alumnus, Matt Clement, gives a guided tour of the body as he shares the highlights of his experience as a student and as a professional massage therapist--and Matt's got some great stories! We invited our guests to put on some gloves and touch the human body (if they dare) and we had a few takers. Each person that donates a body to science is offering the ultimate gift to medical and health students and we are most grateful and respectful of that gift. This type of experience in a massage school is quite unique.

We also visited Dr. Ed Bifulco's palpation class where his students were poking and prodding the knee area to learn how to detect abnormal pathologies. This is a class that is not teaching any kind of massage technique but is one of the foundation courses that make our students well prepared to detect areas of concern in the body.

I can guarantee you will be well prepared for your board exam and your career if you decide to choose National for your formal education. Give me a call (1-800-826-6285) or email me if you'd like to visit or just chat. Personal tours are offered every week day.

- Deb

Most athletes can testify to the pain-relieving, recovery-promoting effects of massage. Now there's a scientific basis that supports booking a session with a massage therapist: On the cellular level massage reduces inflammation and promotes the growth of new mitochondria in skeletal muscle. So says new research from the Buck Institute on Aging and McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. You can read more about this study and watch a video from one of the researchers explaining how they made the discovery.

The study involved the genetic analysis of muscle biopsies taken from the quadriceps of eleven young males after they had exercised to exhaustion on a stationary bicycle. One of their legs was randomly chosen to be massaged. Biopsies were taken from both legs prior to the exercise, immediately after 10 minutes of massage treatment and after a 2.5 hour period of recovery.

Buck Institute faculty Simon Melov, PhD, was responsible for the genetic analysis of the tissue samples. "Our research showed that massage dampened the expression of inflammatory cytokines in the muscle cells and promoted biogenesis of mitochondria, which are the energy-producing units in the cells," said Melov. He added that the pain reduction associated with massage may involve the same mechanism as those targeted by conventional anti-inflammatory drugs. "There's general agreement that massage feels good, now we have a scientific basis for the experience," said Melov.

Once again, National University of Health Science's massage therapy students performed exceptionally well on their national board exam scores, according to an official report from the National Certification Board for Therapeutic Massage and Bodywork.

In fact, National University's school pass rate average for the last two years on the exams was a whopping 91.43 percent! Compare that to the Illinois pass rate average of 65.83 and the national pass rate average of 66.68 for the same time period.

For every single test period since 2009, on every single topic tested, National University MT grads outperformed state and national averages.  Take a look at the full results here.

Every massage therapist needs to take their board exams for licensure in Illinois. National University is proud to be a school that prepares massage students for success on both board exams and for a full range of rewarding career options in massage therapy.

A recent study proving that massage therapy is effective for lower back pain, was featured on NPRs "All Things Considered."

Low back pain is very common. It often goes away after several days or weeks, but it may last for months or years or periodically recur. The usual treatments for low back pain include drugs (painkillers, anti-inflammatory drugs, and muscle relaxants), physical therapy, back exercises, and education about ways to prevent back injury and deal with back pain. Some people use alternative treatments for low back pain, such as chiropractic or massage therapy.

This study compared the short-term and long-term effects of relaxation massage, structural massage, and usual care for people with persisting low back pain.

The researchers first gathered information about the participants' symptoms and how much those symptoms limited their daily activities. They then randomly assigned each participant to receive relaxation massage, structural massage, or usual medical care without massage. Participants assigned to the massage groups got about 1 hour of massage once a week for 10 weeks. The researchers remeasured participants' symptoms and ability to perform daily activities after completing the 10 massage treatments, and then at 6 months and 1 year after starting massage therapy.

Participants who received massage had less pain and were better able to perform daily activities after 10 weeks than those who received usual care. The benefits of massage lasted for 6 months but were less clear at 1 year, when pain and function had improved about equally in all 3 groups. The type of massage did not seem to make a difference. Symptoms and ability to perform activities improved about the same in the 2 massage groups.

(The full report is titled "A Comparison of the Effects of 2 Types of Massage and Usual Care on Chronic Low Back Pain. A Randomized, Controlled Trial." It is in the 5 July 2011 issue of Annals of Internal Medicine (volume 155, pages 1-9). The authors are D.C. Cherkin, K.J. Sherman, J. Kahn, R. Wellman, A.J. Cook, E. Johnson, J. Erro, K. Delaney, and R.A. Deyo.)

At the beginning of their careers, almost every massage therapist faces the question of how to build their clientele on a meager or non-existent marketing budget. To help get the word out there without breaking the bank, consider the time-tested technique of barter - the exchange of services and goods for the same.

Massage Therapists can broaden their word-of-mouth clients through their barter buddies while cutting back on their own personal expenses.

To start with, you might exchange a massage for a small ad in a local paper, or get your business cards or other printing done by a local printer in dire need of touch therapy. Branching out, the possibilities are endless:  personal training sessions, acupuncture, chiropractic, reflexology, facials, hair care, nail services, gym memberships, oil changes, dry cleaning, and all the while you are adding more and more people to the list of clients who will recommend you.

One drawback, though, is that barter is fully taxable. According to the IRS, income from barter arrangements must be reported as income in the year in which the goods or services are exchanged. Arrangements on a noncommercial basis are exempt and fewer than 100 commercial transactions in a given year do not need to be reported.

Recently I had the opportunity to attend a symposium of integrative medicine professionals in New Mexico. Since I was there representing National as an exhibitor, I did not attend the many exciting and innovative workshops, but I did speak to many exciting and innovative health care practitioners who are inspired to bring their practices to another level in patient care. Making the adventure even more interesting was the diversity of the participants. In attendance and conducting workshops were MDs, PhDs, RNs, dietitians, chiropractors, naturopaths, nutritionists, oriental medicine practitioners, acupuncturists, and yes, massage therapists.

Of most interest to me was the fact that a good portion of the workshops were lead or assisted by MDs. I think that I have unfairly grouped MDs together as practitioners who prefer to work with other MDs and shun complementary and alternative care providers. Nothing could have been further from the truth in this setting. If I were from Mars and came to earth for the first time landing smack dab in the middle of this group I would feel their unity, their deep and abiding desire to help and nurture. and be very impressed with the quality of care offered to earthlings.

The only things that resembled any other conference or symposium that I've ever attended were a continental breakfast, refreshment breaks and lunch on your own! Seriously, this was so far off the beaten path and so intense in its purity and energy that I felt privileged to rub elbows with these forward thinking professionals.

The first day started with a keynote presentation on the future of integrative medicine. Workshops included: Integrative Pain Management; Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction; Native American Healing Practices; and Mexican Folk Healing. The afternoon sessions concentrated on cardiology with an Integrative Cardiology; Yoga Therapy for Cardiovascular Health; and Prayer, Healing and the Soul. Day two covered oncology and pediatrics and these sessions included: Chinese Herbal Medicine in Integrative Oncology; Restorative Qualities of Oncology Massage, Yoga for Breast Cancer; Chiropractic Medicine in Adults and Children; Homeopathy in Daily Practice; Healing with Hypnotherapy in Children; and Indigenous Healing Traditions.

Day three addressed women's health issues including nutrition, osteoporosis, chronic stress, and core strength. The symposium concluded with a look at integrative pharmacy with workshops that included The Herbal Kitchen, Ayurvedic Pharmacy, and a Botanicals Panel.

Being a huge supporter of complementary and alternative care, I was in awe of the amount of information that was exchanged by these leaders in integrative medicine. There was an outpouring of support for one another, an eagerness to learn from each other, and a yearning to create a new model of health care together.

Some of the additional benefits offered at this conference were sunrise yoga and meditation at 6:30 am. Our continental breakfast had background music from a harpist one day and a flutist another - and there wasn't a sweet roll or donut in sight. Complementary chair massages were offered by students of the massage program at the University of New Mexico. One evening there was a community ritual for healing offered offsite at the Dragonfly Sanctuary and participants were asked to fast for the day for optimal success. There was much buzz the next morning about how extraordinary the experience had been.

The best part for me was meeting massage therapists who use their practices to improve the health of their clients and, in this setting, were accepted and respected for their part in integrative care. As groups like this one take up the challenge to engage their patients in a wide variety of holistic care, massage therapy will be elevated to its proper position in the health care system. 

So get on board and explore the possibilities of this profession - the sky is the limit! Join the growing list of professionals who call themselves massage therapists and use touch as their healing art. We make it easy for you with our Intro to Massage mini course where you can be a student for two weeks, fall in love with the profession and unleash your inner healer.

British Airlines has teamed up with a leading skin care company to offer customers spa treatments as part of their travel experience. These "Travel Spas" are located in terminals and treatments are offered on a complimentary basis to First Class and Club World customers or other Executive Club members traveling on long haul flights.

Services include Flying Facials to combat the dehydrating effects of flying and also a Stress Away Shoulder to Scalp massage, Flying Feet, Exotic Hand and Arm Re-Energizer, and a Spot on Power Back Massage.