Christine is a certified Medical Massage Practitioner 

Massage Therapy and medical  massage are general terms  that cover a wide range of techniques that have been found to have medical benefits and are used to achieve improvements in the individual’s well-being. While all types of massage are hands-on therapies and involve the manipulation of muscle and tissue, they achieve this in different ways:

Swedish massage – uses long gliding strokes and gentle kneading to release tension in the muscles and surrounding tissues.

Deep tissue massage and trigger point massage – a technique that uses gentle pressure on specific points of the body to release knots or blockages in the tissues that cover and join the muscles.

  Within these medical massage techniques, therapists use different therapies to achieve improvements in the condition diagnosed by the doctor, including:

  Muscle testing

  Rehabilitative stretching procedures

  Trigger point therapy

  Myofascial release

  Positional release

  Neuromuscular therapy

Benefits of medical massage therapy

The specific benefit of medical massage therapy depends on the condition that is being treated. However, benefits of the therapy can include:

Releasing sore and tight muscles that can cause a lack of blood supply to soft tissues and hypersensitivity to touch; known as Ischemia

Relieving nerve entrapment and compression

Deactivating Myofascial trigger points

Decreasing pain and inflammation

Improving circulation and alleviating stress

Aiding digestion

Improving flexibility and range of motion

Calming the nervous system

Improving coordination and posture

Helping prevent future chronic pain conditions

Effectiveness of medical massage therapy

Medical massage has been shown to be highly effective at reducing cases of future chronic pain conditions by dealing effectively with the base cause of the problem. Current studies have shown that the vast majority of pain in chronic conditions, over 80%, comes from soft tissue injuries and over 74% is directly related to trigger points. As well as eliminating the base cause of the pain and helping the individual to live a less painful existence, medical massage therapy is very cost effective. Less time is spent away from work or having to deal with the side effects of pain reducing drugs.