Articles Of The Week Archives - Page 7 of 20 - The Massage Therapist Development Centre

Articles of the Week – January 17, 2021

January 16, 2021/in Article, Massage, Massage Clinic, Massage Therapist, Massage Therapy/by Jon Cain

It’s out of scope for many of us in our professions and jurisdictions to recommend medications. However, it’s important to retain knowledge about the effects of drugs, especially extremely common NSAIDs, on musculoskeletal injuries in our clients.

What Every Physiotherapist Needs to Know about NSAIDs and Musculoskeletal Injuries – Claire Knott

A physiotherapists documents her experience of witnessing racism in the workplace. This acts as an important reminder to not just avoid passing judgment on our clients but to also be aware of the past experiences they may have had elsewhere due to marginalization.

I Didn’t Say Anything: An Essay on Implicit Bias, Emergency Room PT, and My Biggest Regret – Dr. Yusra Iftikhar

As manual practitioners, we all know that physical touch is a beneficial thing to health. It’s great to be able to define what those are.

The sophisticated language of touch – Timothy Cocks

A summary of research that shows some detrimental effects from children’s TV programming that may be emphasizing many unhealthy attitudes and perceptions of pain in our youth. The takeaway from this should be contemplation on what we can do to mitigate this and educate our kids about pain in a healthy way.

Kids’ TV teaching children wrong lessons about pain: new study – Andy Dunne

We’re not here to debate about vaccines right now. However, one interesting study was able to directly demonstrate that the simple act of smiling (and to a lesser extent, frowning) helped to reduce the perception of injection pain. A great example of how expression, especially positive expression, can help our health.

Grin and Bear It: Why Smiling Makes Vaccine Shots Less Painful – Pat Anson

Articles of the Week – January 10, 2020

January 9, 2021/in Article, Massage, Massage Clinic, Massage Therapist, Massage Therapy/by Jon Cain

As therapists, we commonly treat symptoms such as headaches and dizziness. However, it can be difficult to differentiate dizziness onset by cervicogenic factors from those from vestibular and other systemic causes. This article gives us a brief overview that can assist with our reasoning.

A Brief Overview of Cervical Dizziness – Erson Religioso

We’ve talked about different mental strategies to help decrease the sensation and perception of pain. This article speaks about one experiment that compares three different methods to find out which one is the best.

To Keep Pain in Check, Scientists Say ‘Count Down’ – Good News Network

Aggressive goal setting is rampant every January, but it’s a trend that can be detrimental to a lot of our clients who deal with chronic health challenges. Here’s one opinion piece from an individual with chronic illness to help us rethink our encouragement of resolution-making.

I Have a Chronic Illness. Here’s Why I Hate New Year’s Resolutions – Hattie Gladwell

Do you prescribe exercise as part of your health practice? If so, then it’s important to remember quality over quantity and that just because an exercise is “harder”, it doesn’t necessarily equate to more benefit.

Working Hard VS. Always Making Exercise Harder – Tony Gentilcore

Finally, with the New Year, we all tend to see a wave of clients who are looking to make positive lifestyle changes and will be relying on effective coaching from us. Whether you’re a massage therapist, personal trainer, or nutrition coach, the right kind of language when helping guide these changes is crucial.

Effective coach talk: What to say to clients and why it matters. – John Berardi

Articles of the Week – January 3, 2021

January 2, 2021/in Article, Massage, Massage Clinic, Massage Therapist, Massage Therapy/by Jon Cain

A story that was making the news last week was the correlation between grip strength and overall health. While it’s important to remind ourselves of the difference between correlation and causation, perhaps we can use this relationship to help and gauge a client’s health during assessments.

Getting a ‘grip’ on better health – Fliders University

The Achilles tendon is the poster-child of tendon injuries. Here, we talk about the predisposing mechanical factors to Achilles pain and preventative exercises to keep them healthy.

Measures to Strengthen and Prevent Achilles Injuries – Tony Gentilcore

Professionals in our field of work are often overachievers who can’t wait to brush up on the next bit of research, read a book about business, and respond to every opportunity and request. However, as awesome of a practitioner as that makes you, it’s important to mind your own self-care.

Self-care for the Overachiever – Yusra Iftikhar

Here’s one to challenge your brain. We often talk about the importance of variation of movement for optimal health and recovery. However, this strength and conditioning coach has some good rationale on why and when you might want to turn back to specificity and repetition with athletes.

Variation Without Change – Eric Cressey

Two groups of people undergoing surgery – one listens to a blank tape while under anesthetic while the other listens to a tape of positive, therapeutic messages. Read on to find out which group required less pain medication upon waking.

Effect of therapeutic suggestions during general anaesthesia on postoperative pain and opioid use: multicentre randomised controlled trial – Nowak et al.

Articles of the Week – December 20, 2020

December 19, 2020/in Article, Massage, Massage Clinic, Massage Therapist, Massage Therapy/by Jon Cain

A study this past year suggests that heightened pain sensitivity may be a genetic mutation in those of us who possess neanderthal DNA. We can’t exactly do anything about a client’s genes, but that’s an interesting tidbit for you to know!

Neanderthal gene linked to increased pain sensitivity – Hugo Zeberg

“Habits are a safe harbour in stressful times.” Great sage advice that is referenced in this article about creating and maintaining healthy exercise habits in a time where stress and anxiety are running high.

Exercise Habits: Build Them When It’s Good – Justin Kompf

A study that examines chronic pain trends within a large occupational workforce from which you’ll likely recognize all of the concepts that predispose certain subsets of workers to pain. This gives us a great overview of how to explain employee health and manage prevention when, for instance, helping to create health initiatives within companies.

Cross-sectional study of prevalence, characterization and impact of chronic pain disorders in workers – N. Kerckhove et al.

A fascinating article regarding the affect of someone’s language can affect pain, particularly in bilinguals.

How language, cultural identity can affect pain – University of Miami

We all learned the basic physiology of muscle hypertrophy in school. However, it’s easy to lose track of these concepts in practice and, before you know it, all clients are doing ten reps of all exercises to no specific tempo. The Barbell Physio provides a great review to help us fine-tune our rehab methods.

The Mechanism of Muscle Hypertrophy – The Barbell Physio

Articles of the Week – December 6, 2020

December 5, 2020/in Article, Massage, Massage Clinic, Massage Therapist, Massage Therapy/by Jon Cain

There are a few different issues that you could probably use to summarize the struggles that we saw in 2020, and inequality is one of them. Read into some of the shocking things that you may not have known about prejudice in even the medical field.

Chronic Pain and Inequality – Paul Ingraham

Since Jane Fonda coined this term, “No pain no gain” has stuck with us in the fitness world. Conversely, it almost is demonized by many in the healthcare realm. What does the research really say about pain during exercise?

Is No Pain No Gain True? – Tommy Mandala

Another good reminder that self-compassion and self-love greatly increases the ability to cope with pain and illness, assisting our continued involvement in the valued aspects of our lives.

Self-compassion in chronic pain sufferers linked to a better capacity to continue engaging in valued activities – Eric W. Dolan

Non-operative ACL care will sound like a completely foreign concept to many of us. However, more and more research has been emerging that may make you pause and consider the power of conservative care in certain circumstances.

Non-operative ACL Management | What You Need To Know – Scott Buxton

Positivity is often hard for our patients to find amid their pain and other life struggles. This article highlights the importance on capitalizing on positive moments and helping clients celebrate the little victories in their lives and during their recovery.

Make Your Patients’ Good News Even Better with This One Simple Action – Larry Benz

Articles Of The Week November 29, 2020

November 28, 2020/in Article, Massage, Massage Clinic, Massage Therapist, Massage Therapy/by Jon Cain

One of the most valuable things that we can give to pain clients is validation. Yet, this is something that patients will often spend years trying to attain from a practitioner.

I believe you! – Adam Meakins

COVID-19 has been hitting us all through 2020, but the opioid crisis that was here before that never went away. This analysis of addictions treatment highlights the tragic lack of pain-management during substance recovery, even though pain accounted for nearly half of the respondents’ relapses.

Assessment of Chronic Pain Management in the Treatment of Opioid Use Disorder: Gaps in Care and Implications for Treatment Outcomes – Ellis et al.

By now, we are aware that recommending rest and removal from activity is not a sound step towards overall recovery. The Barbell Physio talks about some strategies to help individuals, especially active ones, continue to move and train around their injuries.

How To Continue Training When Injured – The Barbell Physio

In a pandemic, it’s often taboo to even consider physical contact with others. It’s important to remember, however, the mental AND physical health benefits of physical touch between individuals. As manual therapists, this may also help make a case of traditional manual techniques over electrical modalities and soft-tissue release instruments.

Touch forms bonds and boosts immune systems – Richard Lebert

Whether it’s a massage or a foam roller, our understanding of pressure as a therapy tool has evolved. While we’re getting better at redefining and explaining our techniques, now is also the opportunity to restrategize how we use them in the first place.

The 4 Ds of Pressure Therapy – Dr. Chris Leib

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