What techniques/strokes would you use to massage a client with bone cancer?
The Guardian asked:
I’m a massage therapist student and I need help with a report that I’m doing on bone cancer. I need to know what techniques/strokes or even what type of massage you would do for a client with bone cancer. I need to have a detailed session written out, but I don’t know what to put. Help, please?!
I’m a massage therapist student and I need help with a report that I’m doing on bone cancer. I need to know what techniques/strokes or even what type of massage you would do for a client with bone cancer. I need to have a detailed session written out, but I don’t know what to put. Help, please?!
2 Responses to “What techniques/strokes would you use to massage a client with bone cancer?”
Massage therapy for bone cancer patients must provides means of manual muscle therapy. It would be necessary to get all data and information from the doctor, physical, or occupational therapist to study the records and incorporate the right and safe massage therapy. Manual
therapy for bone cancer patients includes reflexology, lymphedema massage, and myofascial release.
Something that I learned in massage therapy school is that chemotherapy treatment really weakens the bones so especially if your client is undergoing chemo I would do a very gentle massage. Of course contact with the physician is a must before any treatment with this client and ongoing conversations are necessary.
After looking at a few different bone cancer websites (google massage therapy and bone cancer) it seems that a lot of the massage that is used for bone cancer patients is to relieve the pain that they are experiencing and to help them relax…If I had a bone cancer patient our first session would include a great deal of conversations so that I could become more familiar with who they are and what their needs are. The first session might be half talk half massage, we would end the session with an evaluation of how the person is feeling and devise a plan for future sessions. Each additional session would still include talking but much less and more massage. I would stick to gentle, swedish type strokes.
I would also only use organic ingredients with this client (as I do with all my clients), they do not need any extra stuff to combat!
Have fun.