Save Your Hands!® Injury Prevention & Ergonomics for Manual Therapists

In addition to blogging about injury prevention and self-care topics for students and therapists, we also want to talk about teaching these topics in massage school. So we’d like to invite massage instructors, education directors, school administrators, etc. to participate in this blog, too. Ideally, massage therapists and bodyworkers would develop good work practices, awareness of risk factors, good body mechanics and excellent self-care practices from the very start. That means from day one of their massage training. So talking about how these things are taught in school is really important.

There are lots of schools out there that are already incorporating effective injury prevention and self-care into their curriculum. But we do hear from lots of students and recent grads that their school did not give them enough information on this subject, and they feel quite disappointed by that. I think it’s important for schools to realize that prospective students are looking for schools that teach them not only how to do massage, but how to be successful as a massage therapist and have a career that lasts as long as they want it to. Students are investing a lot of money in their training, and they want the school to help them protect that investment. And a big part of being successful is being able to avoid symptoms and injury that can interfere with their career and their ability to make a living. Years ago, the fact that there is a high rate of injury among massage therapists wasn’t well-known – now, every magazine has articles about the importance of self-care and preventing injury (Rick and I write lots of them ourselves). So even people who are thinking about going to massage school know that this is important. So whether the school includes comprehensive information on injury prevention (going far beyond just using good body mechanics), or not, can make the difference between a student choosing that school, or not.

Given that fact, I would like to encourage schools not only to include comprehensive injury prevention information in their curriculum (and we’ll be talking more about how to do that in other posts – it’s easier than you may think), but to let prospective students know that they do. Put it in your promotional materials, on your web site – it’s a great value-add for your school, a wonderful benefit for your students – it really does give your school a competitive advantage! So advertise it proudly. If you let prospective students know that you care enough about their health and long-term success in their new career to provide this vital information, they WILL appreciate it, choose your school, and then recommend your school to others when they graduate. More to come!

Rick and I are very happy to collaborate with our friends at Massage Magazine on our new blog.  Back in 1999, Massage Magazine was the first to publish a regular column on self-care and injury prevention, written by myself, called “Helping the Healers”.  So I was really pleased when Massage Magazine once again asked me to provide regular content on this important subject, this time in blog format. Rick Goggins will be blogging with me, contributing his wisdom and knowledge as both a Licensed Massage Practitioner and a Board-Certified Professional Ergonomist with nearly 20 years of workplace injury prevention and ergonomics experience.

In this blog, we’ll be looking at all aspects of self-care, injury prevention, body mechanics and ergonomics for massage therapists. Preventing injury on the job was a major concern for massage therapists back in 1999, and it still is.  In 2006, Rick and I did a study that produced the first reliable statistics on symptoms and injury among American massage therapists, and the results showed that there is definitely reason for all massage therapists to seriously address this issue.  We found that 77% of massage therapists experience symptoms or injury as a result of their work. While that’s a worrisome number, Rick and I also want you to know that there is a great deal you can do to prevent injury.  Injury is common among massage therapists, but it’s definitely not inevitable.

So what do you have to do to prevent injury due to your massage work?  I wish I could tell you “just use good body mechanics”, or “never do more than X number of massages per week.”  But it takes a bit more effort than that.  We tend to want to find one strategy, one simple technique adjustment or new approach to body mechanics that will keep us injury-free throughout our careers.  But there really is no single approach that has been shown to be effective. To maintain your general health, you have to use a number of tactics (eat right, exercise, etc.) – the same is true to avoid work-related injury.  Since there are many reasons that therapists become injured, you need to use a number of different tactics to address the different reasons (referred to as “risk factors”).  For this reason, research has shown that the most effective approach to injury prevention is multifaceted and holistic.  This is the approach we’ll be talking about extensively in this blog.

In this blog, Rick and I also hope to relate some of the science that exists to help you protect and prolong your career.  There are decades worth of research on this subject that has produced proven methods that we know are effective.  You can use these methods not only to prevent injury in your own career, but also to better understand and treat your clients’ work-related symptoms and injuries.  After all, most of your clients work, and they’re also exposed to risk factors, both physical and emotional, on the job.  So you’ll not only learn to save your own hands, neck, shoulders and back; you’ll also enhance your skill as a therapist by learning more about preventing injury!

We look forward to reading and responding to your comments and questions, so please let us hear from you!