About Massage Therapy

• How Can Massage Therapy Help You?
• What to expect at the Clinic that provides Massage Therapy?
• Who Qualifies as a Massage Therapist?
• Who Pays for Massage Therapy?

Your Body's Integral Option

Massage Therapy provides an alternative health option to help alleviate the soft tissue discomfort associated with everday and occupational stresses, muscular over-use and many chronic pain syndromes. It can also greatly reduce the development of painful muscular patterning, if employed early enough after accidents involving trauma and injury.

How Can Massage Therapy Help You?

Many of today's health problems arise from stress. Because stress upsets the delicate integral balance of all your body's functions, regaining this balance requires a holistic approach.

Massage therapy not only treats those parts of you which are a problem, but also affects the whole of your metabolism through normalizing your circulatory, muscular and nervous systems and their interdependent functioning.

Massage therapy is safe and effective if used for stress management, but it is also widely used to help patients obtain relief from many specific problems, including the following:

Massage can benefit people of all ages and conditions - babies, children, pregnant women, the elderly, those in acute and chronic care and those who need palliative consideration.

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What to expect at the Clinic that provides Massage Therapy?

Massage therapy is the manipulation of the soft tissues of the body to gain a therapeutic response. Soft tissue includes muscles, skin and connective tissue, tendons, ligaments and membranes. Swedish massage is currently the most common form of therapy practised; however, massage therapists may use a variety of therapies and techniques, depending on your needs and their specialties, including hydrotherapy (hot and cold packs, ice, baths, etc.), heat lamps and remedial and postural exercise recommendations.

On your first visit, you will be asked for a confidential medical history, which will help the therapist form your assessment and treatment plan. Massage therapy should take place in an atmosphere of safety and confidence. It is a partnership between you and your therapist, who will help you understand the processes behind your pain and how you can work together to alleviate it. You should not be asked to expose yourself beyond the point at which you are comfortable, nor should you be asked to accept any treatment which has not been explained to you or which you do not choose to accept. You may need to undress for therapy, but massage therapists are required to drape you with a sheet so that they expose only that portion of your body on which they are working. It is quite possible to work on a patient who is dressed; while this will obviously restrict the type of therapy you receive, you have a right to be respected in your choice. You will never be made to feel uncomfortable.

Your therapist will help you understand that ultimately your body has the capacity to heal itself, and will work with you to learn how you can become part of this process.

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Who Qualifies as a Massage Therapist?

Education and examination of massage therapists is regulated by the College of Massage Therapists of Ontario. Students complete 2,200 hours of intensive anatomical, physiological and clinical studie, including extensive practical instruction, at a government approved vocational massage therapy school. Graduation is a prerequisite to taking provincial examinations; successful candidates then become licensed and registered under the Regulated Health Professions Act (RHPA) which came into effect in January 1, 1994, renaming the Board of Directors of Masseurs as the College of Massage Therapists of Ontario. All current registered massage therapists (RMT's) are members of this College.

Registered massage therapists have photo ID cards issued by the College of Massage Therapists of Ontario, showing the therapist's registration number; you have the right to view this ID in order to be assured that your therapist is registered.

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Who Pays for Massage Therapy?

While massage therapy is not covered by the Ministry of Health, there are ways you can receive help with funding your treatments. Many private insurance companies provide full or partial coverage under extended health care plans.

Government group medical insurance may cover massage therapy under certain specified criteria. Most insurance companies require a physician's referral.

Under the new "no fault" automobile insurance, potential coverage has increased from four years to 10 years and from $25,000 to $500,000 for treatment of injuries sustained in automobile accidents.

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