The importance and benefits of Massage Therapy

  How can touch be used to combat illness and disability? Human touch is an essential part of our health and wellbeing, throughout our lives from the time we are born to the time we die it plays an essential part in helping us to feel nurtured and cared for. Babies need to be cuddled and held to thrive, children need contact to feel safe and understood, teenagers need to feel connection to feel accepted and heard, adults need to feel wanted and recognised and seniors need touch to combat loneliness and pain. The power of touch is so much more then this, which thankfully has been recognised due to numerous ongoing findings and medical reports which have all proved that patients who received therapeutic touch recovered much faster than those who did not or only received the placebo effect. The Egyptians were the first to introduce the benefits of deep tissue massage and the Chinese the benefits of therapeutic touch into medicine. As a result of the power of touch becoming so beneficial a

  Touch Deprivation and the Elderly It is so easy to take for granted the power of touch, as often without realising it we are constantly receiving it in different forms throughout our everyday lives. What is the first and last thing we do when we see friends or say goodbye to family? We exchange hugs. When we are out walking with our partner or loved ones we often reach for their hand to feel more connected. At school or work others may celebrate success with us with a pat on the back or on the arm. These are normal every day occurrences for some and yet for others that therapeutic touch that we all need as human beings to feel loved, safe and cared for may be much harder to come by. This is particularly evident with seniors, who for numerous reasons, may no longer be able to receive that healing touch that can have such a huge impact on their physical, emotional and social wellbeing. It may be that they live alone and far away from family, leaving them feeling less grounded and physi

  The effect the different kind of touch can have on our senses and sense of wellbeing What are the different types of touch, what do they mean and when may they be used? Did you know that there are 7 different styles of touch and they are as follows: Positive, playful, control, ritual ,hybrid ,task related and accidental So, what do each of these forms of touching actually mean and when may you see these forms of touch being given and received? Positive touch is used to communicate positive emotions between two people and often occurs between couples or those within a close relationship. For example, holding your partners hand whilst out walking in the park or friends giving each other a hug when they meet to have dinner at a restaurant. It is a way of showing their partner or friend that they are loved, important and cared for and this will be the message that will be conveyed and received. Positive touch can also be classified even further into the following categories: Support : t

                                     How touch can mean different things to different people. Who doesn’t like to feel wanted and desired? As human beings it is a basic need to feel that connection and yet touch can mean different things to different people depending entirely on the context it is given and received in. For example, at a work presentation a simple pat on the back may be given from one colleague to another with the intention of showing encouragement and yet the receiver feels it is a call for attention. When a male officer worker is congratulated on his achievements by his female employer with a gentle pat on the arm that action may be meant purely innocently but it may be received by him or his colleagues as a sexual advance. It can be so easy not only to misinterpret what others say and do but also touch can be misinterpreted and often it can feel uncomfortable to clarify what exactly is meant and so we draw our own conclusions which are not always accurate! So h

How can touch  help children suffering from ADD or aggression problems? Attention Deficit Disorder in children or ADD as it can be commonly known can be recognised in children who have excessive difficulties with concentrating but do not show the typical symptoms of ADHD such as excessive impulsiveness or hyperactivity. Typical signs of a child who may be affected are often getting distracted and finding it difficult to organize themselves, forgetfulness, trouble focussing on tasks or instructions, becoming easily distracted, avoiding prolonged activities that require concentration such as homework and trouble listening when spoken to directly. ADD symptoms often show before age 12, are more common in girls then in boys and is often inherited from the parents genes. Aggressive behaviour however can be caused by a variety of reasons including change such as a new baby, moving home or starting school or it can originate from genetic connections or being a victim of bullying, physical, se

    Failure to thrive Syndrome is a term that is used to describe the inadequate development of a baby or infant which usually occurs during infancy. The term is commonly used for children who have failed to grow and develop as expected and when their weight and height is significantly below children of a similar age or sex. There are many different factors that can cause this inability to maintain growth and development and treatment will depend on the reasons for failure to thrive otherwise known as FTT to occur.   Possible reasons include medical issues, exposure to a toxic environment, economic problems and a lack of emotional nurturing and care. Medical issues can vary and include chromosome abnormalities such as Down or Turner Syndrome, heart or lung problems, blood disorders, gastrointestinal problems, defects to major organs or to the central nervous system and problems with the endocrine system such as a growth hormone deficiency. In this instance medical care and ongoing ad