Pain In The Neck Massage

Our lovely little clinic is looking to add to the team...

Thanks for sharing Align Massage Therapy (Ottawa)

We take precautions daily to prevent the spread of illness - proper hand washing, cleaning surfaces that clients come into contact with, and encouraging sick clients and therapists to stay home. We've got your back.

New at the clinic this week.
Welcome aboard Tennille.

✨ New additions ✨

Beginning this week we are happy to welcome another acupuncturist to our team!

Tennille received her training in Traditional Chinese Medicine (DTCM dipl.) Oshio college of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine in Victoria, B.C., Canada. Originally exposed to the power of Chinese Medicine while on midwifery internship in Senegal, West Africa, she was taught to use acupuncture to turn babies in breech presentation, lower blood pressure and ease pain in labour and delivery.

Between acupuncture training and completing the DTCM program, Tennille took a year long internship at two separate Ayurvedic training hospitals in southern India where the primary focus was on detoxification for patients with diabetes and arthralgias. Tennille worked with both the Chinese medical team and maternity department in the main government hospital in Zanzibar, Eastern Africa.

With a deep respect for the practice of medicine Tennille draws much inspiration from witnessing those with pain and chronic conditions come out of their suffering using methods that are not only safe and effective but also side effect free.

Tennille is a Registered Acupuncturist in good standing with the CTCMA (College of Traditional Chinese Medicine Practitioners and Acupuncturists of British Columbia), Ayurvedic practitioner and birth worker. She is currently working on her masters with a focus in human rights and childbirth.

⚡️Tenille's schedule is open and available to book now! Visit www.cardinalpointhealth.janeapp.com or call 250-598-3718 to schedule an initial appointment ⚡️

Public Consultation on Strengthening Canada’s Approach to Substance Use Issues

Your best posture is your next posture! There is no perfect static posture. We are designed to move, not to sit perfectly straight. 😊
So just move into your next posture and slouch 😊👍

Great post by , shared by ! 😊👍
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“The belief of an ideal posture is ingrained in society. Lets work together as health professionals to change this. As the infamous once said ‘Your best posture is your next posture’. “

This is why exercise is good for you! 😊👍
It keeps your muscles, mind and bones strong! 💪

Staying up to date on the science not the rhetoric

Effect of cannabis use in people with chronic non-cancer pain prescribed opioids: findings from a 4-year prospective cohort study Cannabis use was common in people with chronic non-cancer pain who had been prescribed opioids, but we found no evidence that cannabis use improved patient outcomes. People who used cannabis had greater pain and lower self-efficacy in managing pain, and there was no evidence that cannabis use reduce...

Some wise advice from MTDC coach Erson Religioso III

This hit the inter webs pretty hard today, which seems strange since there has been information about it out there since 2010. Still an interesting development as we continue looking closer at the human body and what we may have ‘missed’ so far...

New Human 'Organ' Was Hiding in Plain Sight

Researchers from SFU are recruiting participants from the lower mainland for a study on the potential benefits of immersive virtual reality (VR) for people living with chronic pain. If you are currently experiencing pain that has lasted for 6+ months, you may be eligible to participate. Participants will be compensated $30 for their time. To inquire further or to sign up, please e-mail [email protected] or text 778-316-8887 directly.

This page is changing its focus to resources and information for RMTs. For a more patient centric feed, please follow us at Cardinal Point Health Centre....
thanks for your support - d.

Podcasts for Massage Therapists The RMT Education Project is an initiative that is working to promote the benefits of massage therapy to an international audience, here I have to put together a list of podcasts that are relevant to the practice of massage therapy

Things that make you go hmmmm....

5 lies about detox and toxins - The Pharmafist A comic about toxins, detox, cleanses, liver support programs, weight loss cures... and everything else related to this massive scam.

Resources for manual therapists

- Physical or manual therapist?
- Want to work with a modern biopsychosocial approach?
- Do you want tools to work with persistent pain?

The SERA educational model is a FREE resource, and is a suggested biopsychosocial (BPS) knowledge base and a practical integration guide, designed to help students or therapists to work with the BPS model in daily practice.

Its purpose is to help create updated therapists, improve persistent pain care and to reduce the frequency of iatrogenic consequences for patients. SERA is a fusion of evidence based knowledge, existing treatment frameworks and philosophies.

This is an updated version of the blog post by Tim Marcus Valentin Hustad:

https://www.paincloud.com/single-post/2018/01/19/Introducing-SERA---an-educational-biopsychosocial-model-for-physical-and-manual-therapies

Love him or not, Tom Brady is a scientific human specimen. And he credits his massage therapist with making the difference...

WATCH: Tom Brady's controversial trainer Alex Guerrero shares pliability massage 'Tom vs. Time' took us behind the scenes on some of the massage methods the duo uses

Psychology Month 2018: Free Public Presentations | BC Psychological Association BCPA is hosting free public presentations in February for Psychology Month, an annual campaign that raises awareness about the role of Psychology in shaping mentally healthy communities.

Sharing is caring

Ever wondered why we need kneecaps? • r/Damnthatsinteresting 233 points and 6 comments so far on reddit

There is no ‘bad’ posture. Please stop catastrophic-izing yourself. Take breaths and slowly move into the other postures you haven’t been using. Come see me for more info

The best posture is the most comfortable one until it's not comfy anymore, then we change it to the next comfortable one.

I have returned to a limited schedule at the clinic while I continue my recovery. Appointments up to 60 minutes are available at thatGreatMassage.ca

Hugs and Healthy Hearts
by Grif Alspach, RN, MSN, EdD
Every now and then, science and intuition converge and seem to affirm things we knew all along. From our earliest memories as small children, we instinctively ran to our mother whenever we cut, abraded, scratched, bumped, pinched, burned, or otherwise injured ourselves or fell victim to such treacheries from others. We learned that a mother’s soothing words, gentle ministrations, and warm caress were universal solvents to virtually all of life’s irritants, disappointments, troubles, and fears.

Years later, we deduced that we had grown up because we now dealt with all of those annoyances on our own. Although repeated opportunities to manage such wrinkles in our personal and professional lives purportedly help us to build self-confidence, they can occasionally make us long for those days when mom’s hug was all that we needed to make everything alright again. Are hugs still good for us or was that belief just a childhood delusion? Perhaps I’m just a wuss, but on more occasions than I’d like to admit, they still work for me.

So where’s the science in all of this?
Interestingly, the work of 2 researchers from the Department of Psychiatry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill may be helping to shed some scientific light on these dynamics. Studies completed by psychologists Karen Grewen and Kathleen C. Light* have afforded some physiologic evidence that supports the contention that our positive response to warm physical contact does not disappear once we have successfully side-stepped the failure to thrive syndrome as infants, the tumultuous passage through childhood, or the turbulence of adolescence. Rather, physical contact of this nature is associated with measurable and meaningful attenuation of blood pressure and heart rates in adults.1 If hugs from significant others can help blunt our physiologic response to life’s inevitable stressors, perhaps repeated instances of warm contact and feelings of closeness to others may mitigate the negative effects that life’s hassles can inflict on bodily systems.2

In the study1 referred to, couples who were either married or long-term cohabiting partners were divided as study participants into 2 groups: Group 1 consisted of 100 adults with spouses or long-term partners, who were asked to hold hands while viewing a pleasant, 10-minute video, and then to hug each other for 20 seconds (the “huggers”). Group 2 comprised 85 adults without their spouses or partners, who were asked to rest quietly for that time (the “nonhuggers”). At the conclusion of this period, all participants were required to give a brief “speech” in which they identified something that had stressed or angered them. Following the speeches, all participants had their blood pressure and heart rate measured. A summary of results is as follows:

Blood Pressure
Systolic and diastolic pressures rose in both groups.

Elevations in both systolic and diastolic pressures were significantly higher in the non-huggers compared to the huggers.

The rise in systolic pressure among the nonhuggers was more than double the rise exhibited by the huggers.

Heart Rate
Heart rates increased by an average of 5 beats/min among huggers.

Heart rates increased by an average of 10 beats/min among nonhuggers.

Gender
Although these changes in blood pressure and heart rate were found in both genders, the magnitude of the changes was greater in women compared with men.

A similar set of findings from another study by Grewen and Light is described informally at one of the UNC university Web sites.3 In this study, one unanticipated finding was that African Americans in the hugger group not only had smaller increases in heart rate and blood pressure than the nonhuggers, but also exhibited significantly smaller increases in these parameters when compared with whites. Dr Grewen3 says that “warm physical and/or social contact may be especially beneficial in this high-risk [African-American] group.” Related research by this team has led them to propose that even a brief episode of warm, loving contact at the start of a rough day might protect partners throughout the entire day.4

At the 2004 annual meeting of the American Psychosomatic Society, Dr Grewen5 reportedly described some results from a new study involving 76 adults who were either married or in long-term cohabiting relationships. In that study, partners or spouses who described their relationship as happy had significantly higher levels of oxytocin compared with duos who described themselves as unhappy. Each couple was asked to converse privately for 5 minutes regarding some circumstances that drew them closer to one another, then to watch a romantic video together and to hug each other. During these warm contacts, women experienced significantly higher levels of oxytocin, lower levels of norepinephrine, and lower blood pressure compared to men. It may well be, as Dr Grewen asserts, that oxytocin triggers physiologic changes that help to protect women’s hearts and that their so-called “nesting” tendencies benefit not only their mates and offspring, but also themselves.

No one is advocating unsolicited and unwanted patient bearhugging, but therapeutic hugger and snuggler is certainly a possible role to suggest to significant others and family members who feel helpless in caring for their loved one. Hugs are no panacea, but there’s evidence that they can pacify. Yeah, I knew that all along!

Found at the American Association of Critical-Care Nurse, article WITH references: http://bit.ly/YIrVHf

*Name given in original article is an error. We have corrected for this version and have contacted the American Association of Critical Care Nurses as well.

Art by Cameron Gray

When the latest buzz words/jargon get challenged, new systems arise. What are your thoughts as a manual therapist? Does this apply to what we do?

Moving From the Biopsychosocial Model to the ToK System The ToK System advances and clarifies the biopsychosocial model.

Food for thought... its about moderation and balance

"Our results suggest that cold water immersion is no more effective than active recovery for minimizing the inflammatory and stress responses in muscle after resistance exercise." - Nov 2016

Full Text: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1113/JP272881/full

Fascinating read on the backfire effect on your brain's abilities to deal with core beliefs and conflicting information. A little bit long, a little bit salty but it's a comic format, so it's fun and easy

You're not going to believe what I'm about to tell you - The Oatmeal This is a comic about the backfire effect.

Therapists need to read this. Patients need to find a therapist who has understood it...

Five Myths About Pain That Many Manual Therapists Are Sick of Hearing By Nick Ng, BA, CMT

Truth!

: Wellness begins, always, with the breath. The deeper and longer we draw air in, the more oxygenated our bodies become, and the more heightened our energy and presence.

Yet most of us are not aware of how we breathe. We are shallow breathers. On the rare instances when we use our breath, it comes in huffs and grunts of displeasure or exertion. But life can never be fully felt if we are not breathing in the moment and oxygenating our brains to full power and alertness through deep and present breathing.

Focus on deep breaths today, sipping in the fullness of life as you INHALE...EXHALE...and repeat.

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