| Massage therapy available to masses |
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Page 2 of 2 "As massage therapists, we own the name now; we own the word," said Joe Horn, program chairman at Missouri College, a school in west St. Louis County that prepares students to take the licensed massage therapist certification exams in Missouri. "That's the first step toward getting your profession into a better light." Massage therapy is the practice of manipulation - kneading, stroking, pounding - of muscles, skin, anything that's not bone or connective tissue. The purpose of the manipulation ranges from simply making a client feel good up to helping to aid in the rehabilitation of injuries. "What used to be a feel-good practice that only people with money could indulge and afford," Meyers said, is now "more mainstream, more of a necessity than a luxury." "By relaxing someone, you lower their blood pressure and their heart rate, things of that nature. But there are parts of the body, positions, strokes and different types of maneuvers to create ... to get the desired effects." Trisha Becker teaches massage therapy at St. Louis University. She's a physical therapist who specializes in orthopedic therapy and is a licensed massage therapist. She practices and teaches "outcome-based" massage, meaning she uses massage for the rehabilitation of physical problems. Massage comes in more than 100 forms, maybe more if you take into account that some form of massage has been identified in every culture and country that has pocked the earth. The federal government and medical community consider it complementary and alternative medicine. The most basic massage, the Swedish massage, is the grandparent of all massages in the West. The licensed massage therapist will squeeze, stroke, bend, wring and manipulate muscles. The method produces a series of effects. "Physically, you are moving fluid," Becker said. "That produces physiological effects, which changes the biomechanical effects, which causes psychological effects, reflex effects because you change the nervous systems and psychoneuro-immunological effects, which enhance your immune system. "When you contract a muscle, you have waste products - oxidants, lactic acid, irritants. If you have a lot of tightness in a muscle, that stuff doesn't go anywhere," she says. Massage basically wrings the muscles out as you would a sponge, she says. The waste products go into the lymphatic system and then are flushed from the body, she said. The release of waste materials can be so effective that it sometimes can cause nausea when the massage is complete, Becker says, which is why once a massage is over, clients sit quietly for a while and drink a lot of water to help flush their systems. A massage therapist brings relief, not cure. "Be careful to know that we don't cure anything," Meyers said. "We assist; we help alleviate pain." So if a massage therapist claims to be able to cure an illness or a disease, run in the other direction, he says. Also, don't confuse massage with "reflexology," the practice of massaging feet and palms to affect other parts of the body. People with the placard of reflexologist do not have to be licensed by the state, although a licensed massage therapist may know reflexology and any number of Eastern techniques through his or her continuing education. If you just need to relax, a therapist working in a spa is fine, Becker said. If you have something really ailing you, especially pain, you need to start with your physician and either get a referral or get an OK to visit a licensed massage therapist. Therapists aren't trained to recognize diseases and other conditions that require a physician's diagnosis. |
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