What is Medical Massage?

What is the difference between Medical Massage and Relaxation Massage?

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What is Medical Massage?

One person has said, "Medical massage is the medical model of 'I have something wrong with me, I go to you because you're going to fix it' versus the relaxation model of 'I need something you have.'"

Dr. Gregory Lawton, a director of the American Medical Massage Association and the American Manual Medicine Association, says, "Medical massage is first and foremost, massage, and is therefore a natural and non invasive approach to health care and seeks to support the body's own natural healing capacities. Medical massage therapy is massage that uses techniques supported by current knowledge regarding the body's natural physiological, biochemical, and neurological processes."

Dr. Lawton also says. "When you put the word 'medical' in front of 'massage,' the whole ball game changes. This now means you are treating patient conditions, you are treating a diagnosis, you are treating their presenting symptoms, and you are going to treat them with a targeted plan and try to achieve a response."

A more simplified concept would be that medical massage is focused on reaching a specific goal.

What is the difference between Medical Massage and Relaxation Massage?

The difference between medical massage and relaxation massage occurs the minute someone comes to the therapist with pain as opposed to just stress related discomfort.

The massage session is focused on treating a specific issue as opposed to the relaxation massage which is more likely to be a generally whole body relaxation.

During medical massage there is extensive interactive communication. This is very important to maintain the understanding of what's going on with the body. In a relaxation massage, I generally don't talk unless my client initiates the conversation. In a relaxation massage, the techniques used will usually work the first two layers of muscles (and it is a great massage), but in medical massage the treatment works all the way down to the bone.