What should I expect for my patients from a medical massage session at A&E?

During their first session, your patient’s situation will be assessed. We will evaluate your patient's condition through a series of range of motion tests (in which we are looking for passive, active, and resisted range of motion issues). We will check for contraindications to medical massage, evaluate the patient’s phase of healing, complete a postural and palpatory evaluation, and formulate a plan of care based on your diagnoses and the findings of our evaluation. We will send this initial evaluation and plan to you for your approval. If at any time you decide that the patient is ready for treatment of other body areas, you can download our simple form, fill it out, and fax it to us.

Following the evaluation, if we find no contraindications, the patient will receive treatment. Depending on your patient’s phase of healing and your prescription, this may consist of regular massage (meaning effleurage, petrissage and tapotement only), the application of heat/cold or topical pain relief preparations, trigger point therapy, assisted stretching without active resistance, neuro-muscular rehabilitation (PNF stretches), muscle-energy techniques (MET), myofascial release, or other manual therapies.

Here is what not to expect: In most massage therapy instruction programs, there is training in offering stretches and exercises for the client to do at home, and to advise the client to drink plenty of water following their massage treatment. This is sound advice in most cases, but the medical massage model is quite different. At A & E Medical Massage, although we have been trained in stretches and therapeutic exercises, we will not offer any post-treatment suggestions unless specifically instructed by you, in writing, for each individual case. We will also not treat any area that does not have a soft tissue diagnosis code provided by you.