We'd like to applaud FSMTB for being one of the first massage agencies to publish COVID-19 considerations for massage therapists and bodyworkers. Please click HERE to view their incredible 45 page manual which was put together almost a year ago from now - and is still relevant! 
To learn more advanced massage practices, please register for quality, affordable, professional training at: https://ceinstitute.com/
Check out our latest article about our Lymphatic Facial practice, published by Les Nouvelles Esthetiques & Spa Magazine! This article is written by CE Institute LLC founder and instructor, Selena Belisle.
To learn more, please register for quality, affordable, professional training at: https://ceinstitute.com/collections/lymphatics
Don't miss MASSAGE MAGAZINE's article written by Instructor Selena Belisle in Orthopedic Cupping!
Spa and massage establishments have had to modify their businesses during COVID-19. Updated sanitation practices incorporate how to keep staff and clients safe from contaminated objects and surfaces within the establishment. We know that COVID-19 is mainly spread through respiratory droplets. A spa or massage table has two individuals, the client and practitioner, directly breathing over the table for extended periods. As such, these tables should be thoroughly sanitized between users.
Here are some easy and clear steps to treatment table sanitation:
1. Remove all reusable items from the table that cannot be laundered or sanitized between clients and do not use them during the COVID-19 pandemic, i.e., table skirts or heating pads.
2. Open any available windows or doors and engage any air filtration or ventilation sources before sanitation if they are not already in use. All available air ventilation and filtration sources should already be in use during the COVID-19 pandemic regardless of when sanitation is practiced.
3. Wear a facial covering and gloves to remove all laundry used for the spa or massage service and place items in a sealed container for laundering. This includes blankets, sheets, covers, and towels.
• It is critical to wear a facial covering and gloves while handling anything that has had extended direct contact with a client’s airway during the pandemic and protect yourself from repeated chemical exposure to commercial sanitizers.
4. When laundering items before redressing the table, be sure to use the hot water setting on the washer and the high heat setting on the dryer, plus ensure that all laundry is thoroughly dried after washing with detergent. One of the best ways to reduce bacteria and viruses from the laundry is through high heat temperatures.
• Wash hands before handling clean laundry or redressing the table.
• Use a laundry machine’s sanitize setting if it is available.
• Adding bleach to the wash cycle can help eliminate germs if the laundry can be bleached.
5. Once the laundry is removed from the table, wash the table and all table accessory surfaces with soap and water, then rinse and dry as needed. The goal is to ensure there is not any debris on a surface prior to disinfection. Disinfection is ineffective on a dirty surface; therefore, washing is first required. Provide extra attention to any surface where a client has directly breathed, sneezed, or coughed. That means if a client was in a prone position on the table, be thorough with any bars and handles of a face cradle, face cushion, and top of the table.
• If the table has a hole for a client’s head instead of a separate face cradle, then be sure to wash and thoroughly disinfect all surfaces inside, underneath, and around the face hole.
6. Apply a disinfectant to all table surfaces, legs, knobs, pegs, handles, bolsters, and any remote controls used for table adjustments after cleaning. Do the same for the face cradle, face cushion and any accessories in between. Keep all sanitizer items in a childproof sealed container before and after use. Only use sealed trash receptacles for sanitation trash.
7. Allow proper contact time for the disinfectant to work before redressing the table or table accessories. Mos disinfectants require several minutes of contact time (also known as dwell time) for efficacy. Read and follow the manufacturer’s labeled instructions on a disinfectant.
8. If face cushions with a face cradle are in use, consider using at least two separate face cradles and cushions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Practitioners can alternate face cradles and cushions with every new client to help minimize exposure.
The best way to prevent the acquisition or transmission of COVID-19 is to self-isolate. If you must work during the pandemic, consider utilizing additional protection measures such as a client health intake form, including specific COVID-19 screening.
To learn more, please register for quality, affordable, professional training at: https://ceinstitute.com/
Les Nouvelles Esthetiques, Inc. has published this info and more in CE Institute LLC Founder Selena Belisle's article: Treatment Table Sanitation.
CE Institute LLC is hosting a FREE 1 hour live webinar this month to make your massage therapy practice SAFER during COVID-19. The webinar is available on a 1st come 1st serve basis with registration limited to 50 students.
In this 1 hour webinar, we will review:
* How to reduce COVID-19 exposure in massage therapy practice
* How to improve your air quality during massage
* How to sanitize your massage therapy equipment
* How to practice socially distant massage and bodywork services
* Where LMTs can obtain a FREE COVID-19 Screening Client Health Intake Form
* How to lookup evidence-based information for COVID-19 for massage and other interests
* Where to find Florida's new Trafficking License Requirements Including Mandatory POSTERS
We will also discuss the Florida Board of Massage 2021 CE RULE CHANGE that allows students to take their CE hours in a different format for their 2021 Florida Massage Therapy License Renewal which is due August 31, 2021.
After this information is presented, we will host a live QUESTION AND ANSWER period with Selena Belisle, an Instructor and the Founder of CE Institute LLC. While it may be years until we have all the answers regarding the practice of massage therapy during COVID-19, this is your chance to ask a renown massage and bodywork industry educator your questions.
Attendees will receive a generic certificate via email one day after their attendance; however, this webinar is NOT eligible for CE credit.
To register, please click HERE to enter your name plus email address. Please check your email after you register for the join link to the webinar. The join link will be resent via email 1-day and 1-hour prior to the webinar.
SPECIAL WEBINAR DISCLAIMER: The safest way to protect yourself during COVID-19 is to self-isolate. Attending or following this webinar's suggestions will NOT guarantee to prevent COVID-19 acquisition or transmission.
At CE Institute LLC, we have always taught lymphatic drainage as a bodywork that uses technical skills that include pumping and very light strokes to reduce swelling and improve healing of inflamed human tissue (minus a few contraindications). Inflammation causes could be post-surgical, a sports sprain or strain, post oncology treatments, lymphedema, burns or more. All of these medical conditions should not be treated with excessive or forceful physical pressure.
Last month, a Florida Massage Therapist was served an EMERGENCY RESTRATING ORDER (ERO) for forcibly pushing bodily fluid out of surgical incisions which is also known as "incisional drainage". According to the ERO, the practitioner was advertising her work as "manual lymphatic drainage massages". The ERO reads in part:
the therapist's "...poor judgment in performing dangerous services outside the scope of licensure and the disregard for the laws and regulations governing massage therapists in this state will cause harm to clients and the public in the future. This probability constitutes an immediate, serious danger to the health, safety or welfare of the citizens of the State of Florida."
We are glad that this ERO was issued, and we have heard that there are others. We feel that this ERO reinforces the fact that lymphatic drainage should never forcibly expel bodily fluid out of surgical incisions.
Our opinion of "incisional drainage" which forces bodily fluid out of a surgical incision could cause:
There is a laundry list of medical logic that will never agree with the practice of incisional drainage. As such, we continue to encourage all LMTs to work within their scope of practice, avoid negative news coverage with illegal or out-of-scope practices and do not do anything that could harm your client (or you)!
To learn more about about lymphatic drainage, please register for one of our professional lymphatic drainage classes. We have several different live, hands-on trainings to choose from, starting with 6 hour courses. You can view all of our lymphatic drainage courses by clicking HERE.
Massage Magazine has published CE Institute LLC Founder & Instructor Selena Belisle's article of how to sanitize a massage table and table equipment during COVID-19 (screenshot of the article below).
To learn more, please register for quality, affordable, professional training at: https://ceinstitute.com/
CE Institute LLC has installed a student loyalty program in 2021 for our past students who need financial assistance:
Past students should check their emails from us for this new loyalty program information and offering. We have several students already signed up for these free and discounted offers. The school is most grateful for these students who have supported us throughout the years.
Past students who qualify for either a free or deeper discounted training at the beginning of 2021 should email us ASAP at info@ceinstitute.com. Please provide your name and license # with any additional applicable information in your email so that we can verify your past business and register you accordingly.
Unfortunately the school is unable to extend free or deeper discounted courses beyond this existing loyalty program after March 2021, which is when the school enters the full-swing of Florida massage therapist license renewal season!
In 2020, we extended our CE classes into live interactive webinars because the COVID-19 pandemic has closed our downtown Miami physical school. We will resume downtown Miami school classes sometime in 2022.
Free repeater classes were only eligible for students to repeat their exact same class at the downtown Miami school, with the founder of the school, when the class was less than half full. Students also had to repeat their class within 2 years so that the class would be a true repeater. As such, the free repeater class program has been discontinued because we can no longer meet the program criteria.
Since we closed the physical school, we have had past students ask to take our online classes for free. Online classes have never been part of the free repeater program. One of the perks of providing free repeater classes at the school was to produce additional bodies for better bodyworker swap exchanges, which does not apply to online training.
To the contrary, additional webinar attendees stretch internet bandwidth and decrease student computer screen sizes which makes a lesser quality education for everyone. While the school can pay additional staff and software usage fees to split a class amongst multiple computer screens for a better bandwidth and webcam sharing experience, the school cannot pay these additional fees with unpaid attendees. So, while some of our webinars may appear to have plenty of registration space available, the school requires payment for those spaces so that we can pay for the fees and staff required to provide them.
It wasn't much of an effort to allow a past student to repeat their class in another existing small class at our downtown school, especially when the class was scheduled in our new 1,000+ square foot classrooms, hence the free repeater program. Unfortunately, online training is different.
We are more than happy to support our students whenever possible, however that support must make sense. And while this lengthy explanation does not cover a fraction of the reasons why we cannot provide new online training products for free - we do hope it will help students understand why we never provided free repeater classes with online training, nor could we start doing so now. We hope everyone stays safe during these turbulent times. Thank you!
Massage therapists, spa and bodyworkers have stepped up their sanitation habits in our new pandemic of COVID-19; however, there is one additional step that can be taken in addition to sanitizing a treatment table.
If you must work during COVID-19, it is best to work on clients in a prone position/face down to avoid direct airway-to-airway exchange. And for best sanitation practices, it would be wise to sanitize the face cradle cushion then allow it to sit with a proper amount dwell time, aka contact time, by using a 2nd cushion for your next client. Swapping 2 cushions back and forth is a little extra effort and expense, but could additionally minimize COVID-19 exposure, especially when proper sanitation and safety measures are exercised.
To learn more, please register for quality, affordable, professional training at: https://ceinstitute.com/