Issue link: https://www.massageandbodyworkdigital.com/i/766890
80 m a s s a g e & b o d y w o r k j a n u a r y / f e b r u a r y 2 0 1 7 a fully rehabbed elbow and a nonrehabbed elbow, and you can see that the client with the poorly healed elbow will suffer for the rest of their life. It's not just the acute injury; in this case it could also be, in the years ahead, developing a frozen shoulder, hypermobility in a nearby joint, huge amounts of chronic tension that can contribute to problems in other areas, or losing all body awareness in a chronically painful area. We need to communicate to our clients in a positive way that they only have one chance to heal right. We can also show them how much better they can feel each time they receive a massage. friends and even some health professionals, giving me little hope for a full recovery.) Foster points out that natural, powerful negative emotional states often get in the way of achieving the fastest, fullest recovery. When our clients feel hopeless and deeply stressed, it is going to interfere with their recovery. First and foremost, we can provide a calm and positive demeanor, show our clients that we have deep faith in the body's ability to heal, and, wonderfully, we can also provide relief from stress through massage. We can support the client's determination to get better and their belief that healing is possible. Sadly, rates of noncompliance with physical therapy are high. Clients may say they are bored and have lost interest in rehab. Some factors that prevent patients from getting better include stress, depression, and feeling that the therapy is going slowly or not going well. 11 A willingness to take on tasks, to tolerate frustration when results are slow to come, and to persevere can all be sapped by emotional stress. Then, unfortunately, the helpless feeling generally leads to a vicious cycle and sabotages the effort the client puts into their rehabilitation program. Poorly healed scar tissue, poor mobility, substitution, and possibly arthritis are common long-term consequences of poorly healed injuries. One of our strengths as MTs is having a deep faith in the body's self-healing processes. We can do our clients a huge favor by explaining in a positive way that fully rehabbing an injury can improve their quality of life from that point on. Just look at the difference between