The Principles of Comfort Touch
Work Tailored to the Frail and Elderly BY MARY KATHLEEN ROSE
E
ven the most experienced massage therapist can feel unsure how to touch the medically fragile individual. Techniques of conventional massage—effl eurage, petrissage, friction— can damage the fragile tissues of people of advanced age or infi rmity. And while most massage therapists learn the contraindications to these techniques, they do not learn how they can touch the frail and elderly. The simple, instinctual work known as Comfort Touch is a vehicle for that understanding, arising out of the basic human need to care for others who long for connection.
44 massage & bodywork january/february 2010
