by Selena Belisle, Founder/Instructor, CE Institute LLC
Massage therapy application is subject to medical errors because it is a health care practice that can experience adverse effects from erroneous practitioner choices, despite being reported in scientific research that massage is of the safest health care practices available in modern medicine.
Medical errors can occur during massage when proper training and communication practices are not applied.
It is practically unheard of for a massage therapy medical error to cause death, but there have been serious adverse effects in some cases which is why it is important for therapists to learn how medical errors occur, in an attempt to prevent them.
One Example of a Medical Error That Can Occur Without Physical Injuries
A young healthy woman was refused traditional massage service because of her HIV positive medical status. The therapist told the client they could not provide the massage without a physician’s consent.
Not only is this discriminatory, but it is also uninformed. A HIV positive individual does not need a doctor’s consent to receive massage, especially when there are no contraindications. While this interaction did not result in physical injury, it was a preventable medical error to deny the massage for the reason provided.
Seek Professional Massage Therapy Education to Avoid Medical Errors
It is ill advised to replace professional education with social media interaction or google. Massage therapists should obtain updated professional training in areas where they would like to learn more or practice. This does not include independently watching YouTube videos without the opportunity to interact with a qualified instructor. Also, strangers on social media may not be the best source of medical advice for your client. While some may find this helpful, responsible and viable client treatment planning can only be achieved with a thorough client intake process then viewing plus feeling the client’s tissues.
Massage therapists should curate information from reliable sources. Sometimes clients have evidence-based educational resources about their own malady. It is considered best practices to ask the client’s medical provider for advice with contraindications or appropriate massage applications in complex cases.
Massage therapists should also curate information from reliable sources. Sometimes clients have evidence-based educational resources about their own malady. It is considered best practices to ask the client’s medical provider for advice with contraindications or appropriate massage applications in complex cases.
To create the best plan of action, a therapist may apply a variety of techniques to learn which generates the best response through both verbal and nonverbal communications with the massage recipient. These types of methods are taught in professional massage CE class training.
For professional medical errors prevention training for massage therapists, please visit: https://ceinstitute.com/collections/mandatory
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