Interested in participating in a formal massage research project? Read the following letter we received from Oregon LMT Ian Flannery. (In a few months Oregon School of Massage will ask Ian to tell us the story about his study…how it came to be and the results.)

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Hello fellow LMTs,

I am collecting data for a research project through the Pacific University Exercise Science department and am requesting your participation. The purpose of the study is to measure and record the peak force and pressure applied by massage therapists while using different techniques. The body of research on the effects of massage is growing and massage if gaining recognition as an effective treatment for pain and injury recovery. Surprisingly, only a handful of studies have looked into the effects of different pressures of massage on variables like range of motion, motor neuron activity, self-reported pain, or others that we all believe are positively affected by massage. In fact, little is known about the pressures applied by therapists during treatments in order to guide research design. This study will provide a valuable reference describing what kinds of pressures are being applied during a typical massage session and will help future researchers design more applicable and generalizable studies.

I’m looking for a total of 30 LMTs who have been licensed and practicing for at least one year. Your time commitment will consist of one session of approximately 90 minutes at a location in North Portland. After filling out some paperwork, you will be asked to perform effleurage, petrissage, compression, tapotement, friction, and vibration on a custom built platform outfitted with force transducers (you do not have to regularly use all of the techniques in your practice as long as you can perform them consistently and accurately). An ink print will be taken of your hand, elbow, forearm, etc to calculate the surface area used to apply each technique, which is necessary to calculate the pressure.

This is a great opportunity to be involved in the research that further validates our work and I would greatly appreciate your participation. If you are interested, please contact Ian Flannery by email at flan2109@pacificu.edu or by phone at 503-318-5202.

Thank your participation,

Ian Flannery, LMT
OR Lic# 15513

The post PARTICIPATE IN MASSAGE RESEARCH appeared first on Oregon School of Massage.

Massage Schools Need to Help Stop Trafficking
This posting is part of Oregon School of Massage’s (OSM’s) project to provide information to both the public and the massage profession which will help stop this business which typically operates in the shadows of our culture. OSM periodically hosts presentations explaining the issue and providing appropriate courses of action. (For example: note the May 4 OSM Facebook post at:  https://www.facebook.com/oregonschoolofmassage?fref=ts  )

Resources

If you or someone you know is in immediate danger, please call 911.

Polaris Project
www.polarisproject.org

If you have information about a potential trafficking situation, please contact the National Human Trafficking Resource Center (NHTRC).
The easiest and fastest way to reach us is to call our hotline at 1-888-3737-888.  Hotline Call Specialists are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year to take reports from anywhere in the country related to potential trafficking victims, suspicious behaviors, and/or locations where trafficking is suspected to occur.   All reports are confidential.  Interpreters are available.

OATH – Oregonians Against Trafficking Humans
http://www.oregonoath.org/
To prevent the exploitation of men, women and youth, by educating and promoting practical community engagement by Oregonians in order to end the tragedy of trafficking.

SARC – Sexual Assault Resource Center
http://sarcoregon.org/
24 hour crisis line: 503-640-5311
Toll free number: 1-888-640-5311
All services are free and confidential
4900 SW Griffith Drive, Suite 100
Beaverton, Oregon 97005
Office: 503-626-9100
Our mission is to promote social justice by eliminating sexual violence in our community through education, support and advocacy.

Mid-Valley Women’s Crisis Service
http://www.mvwcs.com/index.html
24 hour hotline: (503) 399-7722 or toll free in Oregon 1 (866) 399-7722
795 Winter St NE
Salem, OR 97301
The Mid-Valley Women’s Crisis Service offers a safe refuge and support to women and children who survive domestic and sexual violence.

International Justice Mission
http://www.ijm.org/
International Justice Mission is a human rights agency that brings rescue to victims of slavery, sexual exploitation and other forms of violent oppression.

The post HUMAN TRAFFICKING appeared first on Oregon School of Massage.

AMTA (American Massage Therapy Association) announced the association’s new AMTA Student Scholarship, which will culminate in a $5,000 scholarship to a massage therapy student this September.

Massage therapy students can easily review all requirements and apply online. Share the good news with an OSM student.

Open to all massage therapy students currently enrolled, or admitted, in a 500-hour minimum entry level massage therapy program.

Applications are due by May 31, 2013.The scholarship recipient will be announced on September 10, 2013.

The student recipient will be presented with a certificate and check at a special event held at the student’s school.
Information/Application:  Scholarship.

The post AMTA SCHOLARSHIP – Applications due May 31 appeared first on Oregon School of Massage.

Leslie Stager, RN, LMT, one of our favorite instructors, is soon returning to Oregon School of Massage to teach her three-day Essentials of Pregnancy Massage. May 3-5. Leslie will also be teaching:
• Pregnancy Massage:  Labor and Birth                 May 6
• Pregnancy Massage:  Advanced Techniques       May 10
• Bodywork for the New Mom                                 May 11

Leslie has extensive information on her website. To access the website, click here. 

When on the website, under “The Courses,” click on the desired course title; that will provide a good description of the course. You can also view some film clips. In the first clip (at the top of the website) Leslie talks about her work and describes some of the material she has developed. The second clip covers a brief segment of one of her classes and the third clip is a testimonial from one of her students.

Include Pregnancy Massage in Your Practice
Pregnancy is a time that brings new challenges to a woman, often with few options available to address them.  Pregnancy massage can open your practice to an expanded clientele as well as open more employment doors because many professional settings like birthing centers, hospitals and medical offices are including it among their services.  

The post PREGNANCY MASSAGE IN PORTLAND – May 3-5 appeared first on Oregon School of Massage.

PLUS FREE  X-RAYS & A TEETH CLEANING

*if you qualify and are selected

YOU MAY QUALIFY AS A DENTAL HYGIENE BOARD EXAMINATION PATIENT IF:
 You are at least 18 years of age or older
 It has been at least 5 years or more since your last dental cleaning
 You have NO emergency dental needs (i.e. pain/infection)
 You are willing to receive dental injections
 You meet ALL board qualifications (to be discussed at screening appointment)
 You are willing to commit to 1-2 screening appointments & the 5-hour Board Examination
 Dates willing to commit for:
BOARD EXAMINATION are May 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th, or 19th


PLEASE SERIOUS APPLICANTS ONLY
CALL & LEAVE A MESSAGE ASAP
TO SCHEDULE A SCREENING APPOINTMENT
(503) 649-2327
(You will be leaving a message & we will get back with you ASAP)

(If speak Spanish, call (971) 722-8141)

The post PCC DENTAL HYGIENE SERVICES FREE appeared first on Oregon School of Massage.

An article on pain management, written by OSM instructor Marybetts Sinclair, describes how frequently used pain medication increasingly contaminates our environment. Her study was published in the Oct-Nov issue of Integrative Medicine: A Clinician’s Journal. Sinclair suggests that one remedy is the use of massage for managing pain. A summary of her article can be viewed at (you need to put Marybetts’ name in the search field): http://www.imjournal.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/archives.main.   To read the entire article go to:  http://imjournal.com/DIGITAL/2012/IM11_5/

About doing this research Marybetts writes:
My first inkling that prescription medications were creating a potential environmental problem, was when I read a newspaper account of research performed by the United States Geological Service. Their scientist sampled 139 streams in 30 American states, and found medications in 80% of all the streams! Then I read an article which told of antidepressants being found in detectable levels downstream from water treatment plants and that fish exposed to them did not react as quickly to predators, and some fish exposed to Prozac stopped eating and began hanging vertically in the water.

One of the scientists, a chemist, said “I was surprised by how often I was seeing these anti-depressants…Pretty much any water sample in the vicinity of a water treatment plant will test positive for some group of antidepressants.” At this point, I was not aware that pain medications were the most common medication found in our country’s water.

It was not until I read an Associated Press series that was published in 2008, that I really began to think about this. Over many months of research, the AP team found that the federal government doesn’t require testing and has not set any safety limits for drugs in water, and Americans are taking more drugs and flushing them unmetabolized and unused in growing amounts. A few other disturbing facts began to prod me to write an article for doctors, who are responsible for giving prescriptions to patients.

First, Americans are using painkillers in staggering numbers. Vicodin is the number one medication prescribed by American physicians (122 million prescriptions last year). Physicians hand out prescriptions freely: a pre-med student at a prestigious Oregon university told me recently that “if I go into the student health center on campus with any complaint at all, even a sore throat, the doctors there will ask me if I want a prescription for Vicodin.” Americans are only 4.6% of the world’s population, but they use 80% of the global opioid supply!

Second, the surge in addiction to these painkillers is causing such an increase in babies born addicted to them, that the American Academy of Pediatrics has called for every hospital nursery to be screen mothers for addiction and evaluate babies at risk for withdrawal symptoms.

Third, many scientist are very concerned about levels of medications in drinking water –they know that there are adverse effects on wildlife and they are worried about long-term effects on humans. Painkillers are a huge part of this problem, but there are many other types of drugs in our watr as well.

As I read about these issues, I began to wonder why, with the excellent non-drug treatments for pain, that are now available, prescription medications would be the first resort. I have the privilege of working with some wonderfully skilled physical therapists, and as a massage therapist for almost 40 years, have seen how much relief can come from massage.

I have also seen many hospice patients get significant pain relief from acupuncture. Why start with a synthetic chemical,with possible bad effects on the environment, for a person with pain, when other effective strategies are available? So I began to write! I found 2 water treatment engineers who were happy to discuss these issues and lend me their expertise, checked out many books on pharmaceutical manufacturing from Oregon State University’s library, interviewed doctors and pharmacists, and read many more journal articles by scientists. I found a journal for doctors, that was interested in this slant on prescribing pain medication, an idea the journal said was new to them. About 100 hours later, I completed the article! Now I hope it has some impact, and makes some health professionals aware, that there are other excellent techniques to treat pain, even severe pain, with physical therapies. Bodywork is green!

You may remember, Marybetts is the Corvallis LMT who has shared with us in earlier blogs her experiences teaching massage in Indonesia and South Korea. Read about Marybetts’ work, or make contact with her, at:  http://www.marybettssinclair.com/index.html

The post SINCLAIR ARTICLE: MASSAGE FOR PAIN RX appeared first on Oregon School of Massage.

May 4-5, 2013
Sat-Sun, 9 am-4pm (12 CE hours)
$325
(To register call OSM. 5003-244-3420 or 800-844-3420)
Our recent Spring 2013 Continuing Education brochure provided only general information about a May 4-5 introductory training. Below is an expanded description of that training. This training will give the participant important health science information and a practical assessment tool (see below). It will also provide a practical picture of an in-depth, year-long training beginning in July.

(At the bottom of this post you will also find a brief comment about that in-depth, year-long Functional Neurology training.)

Functional Neurology for the Practitioner: an Overview
The primary focus of this two-day course is to promote an understanding of functional neurology in the clinical setting. The course is divided into classroom instruction involving everyday practice of principles, and live demonstration and practice of newly learned concepts. (Approximately 70% of the training time will be lecture with the balance being demonstration and practice.) The learner will be introduced to fundamental concepts of functional neurology and how traditional massage therapy, acupuncture, and other therapies such as mental health therapies can be enhanced to accommodate client’s functional neurological deficits.

Day One:
Neuron Theory
• An introduction and explanation of neuron theory and how it applies to body workers and mental health practitioners.
• The relationship of our environment and its influences on the central nervous and muscular skeletal system.
• Plasticity and hemisphericity. The cause of many chronic muscular injuries.
• Advanced components of neuronal structure and activity will be reviewed with emphasis on the relationship between environment and their effects on the central nervous system and muscular system.
• Clinical applications of neuron theory will be emphasized.
Day Two:
Brainstem/Cerebellum/Neocortex
• An introduction and explanation of the brainstem, cerebellum and its importance for bodywork.
• The relationship of the cerebellum to different sections of the body.
• An introduction to eye movements and their link to muscle tone.
• The role of the Neocortex and muscle tone.
• Massage/Acupuncture and hemisphericity.
• Assessment of the cerebellum and Neocortex to help identify neurological imbalances (3 minute screening)

____________________
YEAR-LONG TRAINING IN FUNCTIONAL NEUROLOGY
July 2013-June 2014
Beginning in July 2013 a year-long training will be offered; it will delve in detail into the functions of the nervous system throughout the human body and how the system interacts with other systems in the maintenance of health. It will address how the nervous system, with various forms of bodywork, can be engaged to address a variety of health conditions.

The year-long training will meet for two consecutive days each month. The exact dates, a detailed course outline and costs will be available in two weeks.

The post FUNCTIONAL NEUROLOGY appeared first on Oregon School of Massage.

A representative from each of these projects will do a 15-minute presentation. Following the presentations you can visit with the presenter(s) and obtain additional information.

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EDUCATION IN HAITI – with Rich Ireland 

     

 

Rich Ireland, a long-time OSM staff member, worked in Haiti for the Peace Corps 1998 -2001.  After he returned he sent money to six families in Haiti for their children to go to school. With just a $200 investment for each family he found in 2011 that his intervention had great impact.  5 students had graduated from HS and were in  Professional trainings in nursing, engineering and law.  Another 17 were still in school and many wanting to go on to further education.  this in a country where 50% graduate from 6th grade and 9% graduate from High School. Coming home he decided to start a non profit Education for Haiti to continue supporting these students and building to add more.

Rich has been an LMT and a Hakomi Therapist forever and ever. He is a student clinic supervisor at OSM.

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WATER PROJECT IN BORNEO – with John Paisley

    

 

John Paisley has been volunteering in Borneo since 1995 with a number of local and international organizations, including a few years as a boardmember with local NGO, Green Empowerment. His focus has been village development projects that strengthen the rights of indigenous communities to their NCR (Native Customary Rights) land. Those rights are under continual attack by resource developers such as timber, oil palm, and mining.John has just returned from managing a community microhydro electrification project in Long Lamai, a remote Penan village in Sarawak, and the SEAREPA Alternative Energy Conference in Sandakan, Sabah.

In his domestic professional life, John has been the owner/president of John Paisley Builder, Inc., a residential/commercial construction design/build and project management firm, for  over 20 years. He is a recent graduate of OSM and now a licenced LMT. He has also had a career as an electronics test and measurement engineer.

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WOMEN SEWING IN OAXACA – with Nancy Freeman

 

Nancy, a 2011 graduate of OSM, is a volunteer with, and serves on the Board of Directors of, Ayuda, an Oregon nonprofit. Ayuda has provided assistance to a variety of health, agricultural and educational projects in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca. In February of 2012 Nancy lead a fabric-design training for a dozen women in the village of San Pablo Etla. Ayuda has provided additional support for the local training of these women so that their work can generate the income needed to support their families.

Nancy will describe and show pictures of the women’s group and their work. (Nancy is an artist living in SW Portland.) She will be joined by Tom Nelson, President of Ayuda; Tom, formerly a career counselor at Reed College, also serves on an OSM Advisory Committee.

 If you are planning to attend please contact us at Oregon School of Massage (phone 503-244-3420 or by email to Alexis Reale at ar@oregonschoolofmassage.com)

The post OSM COMMUNITY AT WORK – Haiti, Borneo, and Oaxaca appeared first on Oregon School of Massage.

Ray Siderius, Director, Oregon School of Massage (Portland and Salem).

Recently the Oregon Senate Comittee on Health Care and Human Services conducted a hearing on this proposal. I understand that the Committee proposed some changes which would exempt more LMT’s than the original version. As of 3:00 pm, February 22 those changes had not been posted on the state’s website.

That being the case, my thoughts are in reference to the legislation as it is currently posted (view at SB 387). While amendments may change my thinking about the legislation I would contend that most of points I make in this article would probably apply to the proposal in a revised form.

Background
According to a January 17, 2013 posting on the Oregon Board of Massage Therapists the proposed Senate Bill 387 will require massage facilities to obtain a “facility permit,” with the intent of exercising more effective control over illegal and/or unsanitary practices. In its current form the proposal would require facility permits for all facilities except therapists working out of their home.

I regret to report that the Oregon Board of Massage Therapists has not made a clear case for how this measure would effectively address their concerns, nor have they done a need assessment with any data as to the extent of the concerns which they identify as sanitation and illicit practices. Neither have they outlined the practical considerations of implementing such a measure. A need assessment would include at least an estimate of how many law-abiding therapists this would impact. (Given that there are several thousand licensed therapists in Oregon this could easily impact over a thousand LMT’s in Oregon.)

Rationale for Concern
As a school and an active members of the profession we too are concerned about the issues such as sanitation and illicit massage practices. Regarding the sanitation, the Oregon Board of Massage Therapists already has the statutory authority to inspect massage premises (ORS 687.123) and discipline violators; they also have the authority to prohibit unlawful practices of massage (ORS 687.021 Practice of massage without license prohibited; injunction against violation.)

I would presume, and have heard informal comments, that Board members and staff are frustrated by their inability to close some of the facilities which conduct illicit business. One of their complaints is that those businesses harboring illegal activities, which are subject to the above provisions of the statute (ORS 687), pay the fines that the Board levies and then move on, starting up in another location. Another complaint is that the Board and law enforcement agencies often do not have the resources to aggressively investigate and prosecute these violations.

Interestingly, there appears to be little in the proposed “facility permit” provisions which would change that process. The permit requirement would give the Board a different “stick” with which to whack (i.e., fine) the violator, not a better “stick.” The point is we do not need to add “sticks” which do not have a substantive regulatory benefit, to the Board’s arsenal…especially when adding that new “stick” adds considerably to the cost of doing legitimate business.

Another point to consider is the application of the proposed provision. If you put this measure into effect you add complications and extra work to the duties of an already short staffed Board and police agencies with limited resources…without additional benefit. Adding more chores/bureaucracy will hinder attention being given to the more effective, existing measures referred to below.

Human trafficking, which is one component of some illegal practices of concern to the profession, is an abominable violation of human life. The traffickers should be convicted and incarcerated, not merely fined. I would urge the Board to put its effort into informing licensees, and the public, engaging their support in identifying violators so that truly effective measures can be brought to bear.

An article in the Jan-Feb 2013 issue of Massage & Bodywork outlines a more direct approach…use the laws which are already in place. The article cites the Trafficking Victims Protective Act of 2000 (TVPA) as one of those effective measures, and reports that the FBI’s “Operation Cross Country” has resulted in 1,107 convictions of traffickers.

Our school is supportive of efforts to address both sanitation and illegal practices; we are willing to be a part of reasonable efforts to do so. In that this legislation adds considerable process and cost to the legitimate practice of a valuable healthcare service, when viable measures exist to more directly address the stated concerns, I argue that SB 387 is more, and not smarter, government.

Respectfully submitted.

The post UPDATE ON SB 387- MASSAGE FACILITY PERMIT appeared first on Oregon School of Massage.

This blog will serve as a bridge to several lists of Portland and Salem healthcare providers. The intent is to provide you with names and contact information of resources that may be of use to those in our community who do not have insurance and/or have limited income. To make your search somewhat easier the names are divided into four lists:

• Salem/Mid-Willamette Valley
• Portland – Primary care
• Portland – Natural Healthcare (acupuncture, chiropractic, naturopathy, etc.)
• Portland – Mental Health

If you know of additional resources that you would recommend please forward that information to ar@oregonschoolofmassage.com.

These names have been obtained from publicly available media;  listing an agency or an individual is not an endorsement by Oregon School of Massage.

We welcome your comments about any of these providers which you have occasion to use. Send those comments to rs@oregonschoolofmassage.com.

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Thanks to:
• Rosa Leonardi and Sharon Roemmel for compiling Salem/Mid-Willamette information
• Alexis Reale and Wendy Warren for compiling Portland area information

The post PORTLAND AND SALEM HEALTHCARE RESOURCES appeared first on Oregon School of Massage.