Issue link: https://www.massageandbodyworkdigital.com/i/1402696
L i s te n to T h e A B M P Po d c a s t a t a b m p.co m /p o d c a s t s o r w h e reve r yo u a cce s s yo u r favo r i te p o d c a s t s 23 You can be a part of this change, no matter where you practice. Get curious about how you talk about what you do, regardless of your practice setting. Think about the value you bring beyond your hands, and talk with others about it. Push our research organizations and funders to move beyond mechanistic, protocol-based measurements of massage that mirror trials designed to measure the effect of medications. Massage therapists provide an experiential, multifaceted, psychosocial intervention unlike any other that is currently available in health care. Let's stop hiding behind our hands. Cal Cates is an educator, writer, and speaker on topics ranging from massage therapy in the hospital setting to end-of-life care and massage therapy policy and regulation. A founding director of the Society for Oncology Massage from 2007–2014 and current executive director and founder of Healwell, Cates works within and beyond the massage therapy community to elevate the level of practice and integration of massage overall and in health care specifically. Cates also is the co- creator of the podcasts Massage Therapy Without Borders and Interdisciplinary. within the broad scope of their own varied and previously unrepresented discipline? When a massage therapist is integrated and empowered to bring to bear all the skill and competency they possess and to demonstrate sound clinical decision making and a developed ability to collaborate with other providers, then we're not talking about something "anybody can do." We're talking about introducing a provider who can not only offer a unique intervention, but who can also augment the standard of care in a responsible, clinically appropriate way that adds measurable value. It is measurable, but we're not measuring it. We can say with relative confidence that massage therapy (or rubbing) decreases anxiety and pain. In some cases, it may lessen nausea or improve sleep. And these outcomes have been demonstrated in many studies, with rigid, step-by-step protocols and with the touch provided by nonmassage therapists. Yes, there are studies that have been conducted with massage therapists and with less rigid protocols, but they are not the norm, and they do not highlight the value of the practitioner. If 10 years from now studies have been designed and executed to measure the effect massage therapists can have on lessening the care burden on family caregivers and nurses, I will dance the most exuberantly elated jig. When we start measuring the value of the incorporation of skilled massage therapists in decreasing staff turnover in hospital and clinic staff, we'll be getting somewhere. There is real potential to show that meaningful integration of massage therapists can lessen the need for rescue doses of pain medication or regularly prescribed sleep aids, and it's time to realize that potential. Massage therapists will move solidly out of the "nice to have" category of health-care provider and into the "must have" on par with speech therapy, social work, and occupational therapy only when we show that to be true. And this is our work to do. FOR MORE INFORMATION Listen to Cal Cates's and Cathy Ryan's podcasts Massage Therapy Without Borders and Interdisciplinary on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, or healwell.org. As massage therapists and bodyworkers, it's time to advocate for being more than people who rub; we have to show ourselves to be practitioners whose hands are the very tip of an outcome-improving iceberg.