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Massage and Aromatherapy: A Guide for Health Professionals PDF

320 Pages·1996·9.54 MB·English
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Massage and Aromatherapy Massage and Aromatherapy A guide for health professionals Andrew Vickers Research Council for Complementary Medicine with contributions from Steve Van Toller and Caroline Stevensen I~nl SPRINGER-SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA, BV. First edition 1996 © 1996 Andrew Vickers Originally published by Chapman & Hall in 1996 Typeset in 10/12 pt Palatino by Mews Photosetting, Beckenham, Kent ISBN 978-1-56593-349-1 ISBN 978-1-4899-3130-6 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-4899-3130-6 Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the UK Copyright Designs and Patents Act, 1988, this publication may not be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any ferm or by any means, without the prior permission in writL'l.g of the publishers, or in the ca~e of reprographic reproduction only in accordance with the terms of the licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency in the UK, or in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the appropriate Reproduction Rights Organization outside the UK. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the terms stated here should be sent to the publishers at the London address printed on this page. The publisher makes no representation, express or implied, with regard to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and cannot accept any legal responSibility or liability for any errors or omissions that may be made. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 95-83015 @Printed on permanent acid-free text paper, manufactured in accordance with ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 and ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1984 (permanence of Paper). This book is dedicated to Caroline Batzdorf, for the best back rub ever, June 1993. Contents Preface x Acknowledgements xv Part One: Introduction 1 1 Introduction to complementary medicine 3 What is complementary medicine? 3 Complementary medicine and health care 12 Summary 14 2 Introduction to massage and aromatherapy 16 Introduction to massage 16 Introduction to aromatherapy 27 Introduction to the sense of smell 32 Steve Van Toller, Director Warwick Olfaction Research Group, Warwick University Summary 35 3 Massage and aromatherapy: an overview of practice 37 Who practises massage andaromatherapy? 37 Core beliefs in massage and aromatherapy 41 Conclusion: what are the implications for practice? 70 Summary 72 4 Research on massage 74 Clinical research on massage 74 Basic research on massage 93 Research on touch 110 Research on massage and touch: a summary of the main findings 124 viii Contents 5 Research on aroma therapy 127 Clinical research on aromatherapy 127 Basic research in aromatherapy 143 Research on olfaction 161 Research on aromatherapy and essential oils: a summary of the main findings 167 Part Two: Practice 6 The therapeutic use of massage and aromatherapy: an overview 173 7 Disability 177 Physical disability 177 Children with disabilities 182 Severe learning disability and profound disability 188 8 Disease 193 Cancer care 193 Caroline Stevensen, MacMillan Clinical Nurse Specialist in Complementary Therapies, Royal London Homoeopathic NHS Trust, London, and Andrew Vickers HIV and AIDS 197 Cardiovascular rehabilitation 202 9 Special health care settings 206 Primary care 206 Midwifery: pregnancy and the first months of life 211 Mental health 216 Hospice care 222 Intensive care 227 Caroline Stevensen, MacMillan Clinical Nurse Specialist in Complementary Therapies, Royal London Homoeopathic NHS Trust, London, and Andrew Vickers Massage and aromatherapy: the autonomous practitioner 231 Part Three: Management 237 10 Organizing massage and aromatherapy in conventional health settings 239 Ensuring safe and competent use of massage and aromatherapy 240 Management of massage and aroma therapy in day-to-day practice 244 Contents ix Introducing massage and aroma therapy into new settings 248 Limitations and exceptions to management 252 Conclusion 253 11 Safety of massage and aroma therapy 255 Adverse effects and drug interactions of essential oils 255 Adverse effects of massage 262 Summary: safety of massage and aromatherapy 264 Epilogue 266 Appendix A: Training in massage and aromatherapy 268 How to choose a course 269 Addresses 270 Appendix B: Further reading 272 Books on massage and touch 272 Books on aromatherapy and the sense of smell 273 Books for the health professional 273 General books on complementary medicine 274 Appendix c: Other organizations 275 References 276 Author index 301 Subject index 307 Preface This book aims to give health professionals a balanced and indepen dent overview of massage and aromatherapy. I have written it because, despite growing interest, there is a dearth of professional literature on this subject. This book aims to cover a number of topics which are under-represented in existing publications. These include: • scientific research in massage and aromatherapy; • the use of the therapies in medical settings; • the knowledge base of massage and aromatherapy; • professional and managerial issues; • safety. Understanding of these subjects is essential for any reasoned evalu ation of massage and aromatherapy. Yet this book is probably the first to provide information suitable for this task. At the current time of writing, almost all books on massage and aromat herapy have been written with the lay public in mind. The texts recommended to students and practitioners by the foremost schools and institutions are exactly the same as those available in health food shops as general introductions for prospective patients. Not surprisingly, such books generally fail to include in-depth discussions of professional issues. A CRITIQUE OF MASSAGE AND AROMATHERAPY I am broadly supportive of massage and aromatherapy. In researching this book I have been impressed by the experiences of patients and their practitioners. Health professionals who have worked alongside practitioners have generally been extremely positive and the scientific evidence, discussed at length in Chapters 4 and 5, does seem to lend at least some support to current practice. That said, I do not believe that everything practitioners claim is correct. Moreover, I do not believe that the therapies are beyond improvement. The current state of Preface xi knowledge in massage and aromatherapy is likely to fall short of the optimum. This is something which could and should be said of any therapy: presumably no-one believes that doctors are always correct or that conventional medicine is perfect and could not possibly progress any further. I will be offering a critique of massage and aromatherapy in this book and it is possible that some of what I write will upset practition ers. For example, in Chapter 3, I analyse the writings of a number of leading aromat herapy authors and argue that much of what they say is incoherent. Authors make claims which are unusual, or simplistic, or just plain inaccurate, and there is profound disagreement between texts as to the properties and indications of the essential oils. It is worth re-stating that the rationale of the book is to provide a reasoned exam ination of massage and aromatherapy written by an independent observer. It is quite definitely not my intention to debunk massage or aromatherapy. But neither is it my intention to offer them unqualified support. When I say that I offer a 'critique' of massage and aromather apy, I use this word in the sense of analysis rather than in the sense of denigration. I do hope that practitioners will not take this book as an 'attack'on massage or aromatherapy. On the contrary, I see the aim of this book as aiding the progress and development of the therapies. There can be no progress without constructive criticism: we not only need to generate new ideas, we also need to evaluate them. I hope that this book will help kick-start the process of critical evaluation in massage and aro matherapy. HOLISM AND INDIVIDUALISM The very process of writing this book has involved going against two principles emphasized by practitioners of massage and aromatherapy. Firstly, that it is misleading to look at symptoms out of context of the whole person (holism) and secondly, that each whole person is a unique individual (individualism). So while I am tempted to agree that conventional distinctions between mind and body are often simplistic, it has sometimes been necessary to use those distinctions in order to write coherently. I have used conventional health-care language in the main because I am aiming to communicate with people who under stand that language. The main aim of this book is to help identify the role and scope of massage and aromatherapy. This has often entailed identifying .. the health problems that patients, practitioners and others have reported to be helped by treatment. If those problems have been predominantly psychological (for example, in cancer) it seems worth saying so,

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