Issue link: https://www.massageandbodyworkdigital.com/i/72343
On the clinical team, Dawn Schmidt, LMP, and myself were the two massage consultants hired to train the licensed massage practitioners in the protocol and in the role of the therapist on a research team. Schmidt was a part of the Massage Therapy Research Consortium, a group of massage schools dedicated to collaboratively building research capacity in massage schools and fostering partnership with research scientists, led by Kahn. Representatives from each school met to develop the protocol for the two different types of massage— relaxation versus focused structural massage—but were not paid for their time. Schmidt, as a representative of a consortium school, was integral to the consulting team as she was intimately familiar with the protocol and the discussion that shaped the final result. I was also part of the practitioner selection team, reviewing applications and interviewing massage therapists for the study. I helped identify therapists who had at least five years of steady full-time or nearly full-time massage experience, were located in the areas where there were high concentrations of Group Health patients who were selected as participants in the study, and were skilled in both aspects of the protocol: relaxation massage and myofascial and neuromuscular types of massage. The request for applications and resumes went out to therapists credentialed by Group Health—preferred providers who were currently billing for massage therapy care under Group Health Insurance. With that, we added two more paid massage therapists, four total, and over a dozen massage therapists with some level of involvement. Next, we added 27 licensed massage practitioners (LMPs) to the team. Schmidt and I worked closely with the PI, Cherkin, and coinvestigator, Sherman, to prepare the 27 therapists for their role in the study. The training was held over a weekend for a day and a half; the LMPs were paid for their time. The training included: • Background on massage research for low-back pain. • Goals and structure of the project, including details of the three protocols. • Practical training on the two massage protocols, with demos and exchange time. • Practical training on the homework/self-care protocols. • Practical training on the assessment protocol, pre- and postmassage. • Discussion of potential safety issues. • Training on record keeping. Record-keeping training was critical because a rigid protocol was not implemented. Instead, clear and specific parameters were provided, detailing what could and could not be included in a session, and time frames were allocated per region of the body. Individualization of the sessions was encouraged. As a result, the massage therapists had to document exactly what they did in each session. The treatment forms collected the data on the intervention, not on the results of the study. Research staff collected data on treatment outcomes during phone interviews at four weeks, 10 weeks, 26 weeks, and 52 weeks. As contracted providers, the massage therapists worked in their own offices, mailing in the treatment forms to Group Health along with invoices for their time. They were paid monthly for the invoices submitted, which included payment for missed appointments when a client "no-showed." Thirty-one massage therapists were paid employees, paid consultants, or paid contractors on the low-back pain study, most with little more than their massage license as a prerequisite. The majority of therapists were hired because they had a relationship with the HMO as preferred providers in the network. Three others were already engaged in massage therapy research at some level. One simply sought a job that did not require traditional research education in order to get some research experience. (Brooks went on to get her master's degree in public health and is now the project manager for a study on asthma!) MAKING CONTACT WITH RESEARCHERS Group Health is one of many conducting research on massage therapy and related CAM modalities. Like Group Health,9 some are associated with medical institutions, such as the Mayo Clinic,10 while others are associated with medical schools, such as Harvard's Osher Center,11 Yale School of Medicine,12 and the Touch Research Institute at the University of Miami School of Medicine.13 Look for a medical center or university in your area with an interest in alternative health care, and tune in to your practice at ABMPtv 119