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Objectives. At the end of this presentation you will have the information needed to: Describe how the massage techniques in this category affect different types of tissues.
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Objectives At the end of this presentation you will have the information needed to: • Describe how the massage techniques in this category affect different types of tissues. • Describe each massage technique in terms of the contact surface, pressure, tissues engaged, amplitude, direction, and rate. • Demonstrate how to perform each massage technique and how to apply it in the context of a practice sequence. • Speculate about the mechanisms by which massage techniques achieve their effects. • Describe the outcomes of care, indications, contraindications and common uses associated with each massage technique.
Definitions • Superficial: pertaining to or situated near the surface • Reflex: an involuntary reaction in response to a stimulus applied to the periphery and transmitted to the nervous centers in the brain or spinal cord
Reflex effects of massage • Are mediated by the nervous system • Peripheral receptors send impulses to centers in the brain or spinal cord which then… • …cause a local or systemic response • E.g., stroking a person’s hand at the right rate and rhythm can cause drowsiness
Mechanical effects of massage • Are caused by physically moving tissues, by: • compressing • stretching • shearing • bending • twisting • e.g., stretching scar tissue causes it to lengthen
Superficial reflex techniques • Engage the skin, and affect level of arousal, autonomic balance, or perception of pain • Include: • static contact • superficial stroking • fine vibration
Static contact • Motionless contact of the therapist’s hands with the client’s body, performed with minimal force • The least mechanically forceful of the massage techniques • An important part of systems such as Therapeutic Touch, Reiki, and Polarity Therapy
Static contact: outcomes and uses • Increases rapport • Decreases anxiety, improves relaxation • Analgesia • May improve growth of premature infants • Is used to assist with client education • May affect client’s electromagnetic field
Static contact: contraindications and cautions • Areas of acute inflammation, because of pain • Clients who have much pain or distress may not tolerate touch at all • Be sensitive to the needs of frail, high risk, or terminally ill clients • Even though static contact causes minimal mechanical effects, it can give rise to complex physical and emotional responses, including touch triggered memory
Performing static contact • Use a relaxed upright posture and fully relaxed hands • Breathe using your diaphragm • Encourage relaxation and diaphragmatic breathing in your client • Observe client for signs of relaxation • For a relaxation response, try applying static contact to the client’s occiput, sacrum, face, hands, or feet
Superficial stroking • Gliding over the client’s skin with minimal deformation of subcutaneous tissues • Usually applied unidirectionally over large areas of the client’s body • Often used at the beginning or end of a region or intervention
Superficial stroking: outcomes and uses • Reduces pain • Improves mood and reduces anxiety • Changes level of arousal (alertness) • Improves growth of premature infants • May alter level of neuromuscular tone
Superficial stroking: contraindications and cautions • Areas of acute inflammation, because of pain • Clients who have much pain or distress may not tolerate touch at all • Be sensitive to the needs of frail, high risk, or terminally ill clients • Recent myocardial infarction • With bypass surgery, wait 48 hrs. • Ticklishness: use a broader contact, more lubricant, or more pressure
Performing sedative stroking • Use: • relaxed contact with the entire palmar surface • slow, stable rate • caudal direction (down limbs and back)
Performing stimulating stroking • Use: • fingertip contact • fast irregular rate • multidirectional strokes
Fine vibration • Fast oscillating or trembling movement produced on the client’s skin with minimal deformation of subcutaneous tissues • Manual technique is hard to perform long enough to be effective • Perform using a machine that vibrates at 100 Hz
Fine vibration: outcomes and uses • Analgesia for both acute pain and chronic pain • Improves ability of clients with neurological problems to perform exercise (through temporarily raised neuromuscular tone)
Fine vibration: contraindications and cautions • When pain is due to acute inflammation, the weight of the hand or of a machine may not be tolerated locally
Performing fine vibration • Analgesia is much greater when: • vibration is applied continuously for longer than 30 minutes • rate is 100+ Hz • So use a machine! You can attach it to the client, freeing your hands to perform other manual techniques
References • The references for the material in this presentation are found in Chapter 7: Superficial Reflex Techniques