I have no idea what Foreman’s actual job is anymore. He’s ambitious, and career-oriented, and while the reason he returned to Plainsboro after leaving a few seasons back was because his experiences with House made it hard for him to find work elsewhere, you’d still think that he would’ve nailed down some specific position here, instead of the nebulous, “I am the boss because I really, really hope I am” line he takes most often. The ambiguity comes up in “Massage Therapy” while Foreman and Chase are having it out over the doctor Chase hired to replace the still missing 13. Foreman accuses Chase of hiring Dr. Kelly Benedict because he wants to sleep with her. (This is, just like nearly every accusation on the show, true.) Chase fights back by mocking Foreman’s pretense at leadership, and pointing out that he (Foreman) is just picking on Dr. Kelly because he doesn’t have the guts to spar with House, the real source of his frustration.

It’s not an amazing scene or anything, and by this point in the episode, characters telling Chase he wants to sleep with Benedict is old news (it doesn’t get any fresher by the end, believe you me). But there’s at least some brief tension there, or chemistry, or something that doesn’t just feel like the writers vamping on a series that ran out of fresh ideas the same time Amber ran out of heart-beats. The only real reason I remember it now is that it draws attention to the fact that I have no idea what Foreman even really does on the show these days except glower, and because the rest of the non-patient storyline this episode was, well, kind of freaking boring. The patient, who never really establishes an identity, at least has a semi-decent mystery to hold our attention; and hey, you could even say that her endpoint diagnosis, schizophrenia, makes that lack of personality a fitting artistic choice. The rest of the ep, though, we spend either tearing down Chase’s new hire, with endless riffs on the same predictable material, or we go through a sitcom-level plot about House and Cuddy and a hooker masseuse. (Which sounds a lot more fun in theory than in practice, let me tell you.)

First, Dr. Benedict. I guess having everyone constantly pointing out it is supposed to make it okay that Chase hired an underqualified looker simply for the brownie points, but on a show that routinely mishandles its female characters… ah, screw it. I really don’t want to have this fight today, and it’s not like it’s going to change anything on the show. It was boring, can we agree on that? It was really, really boring, watching House make his snide comments, then Foreman, then back to House for slide show presentation, then more Foreman, then more House, etc, etc. Even the slideshow, while certainly odd, wasn’t really much of anything. There’s no new ground here. Given that the most obvious, meanspirited assumption a person can make when a beautiful woman gets a job is, “Oh, she got picked because somebody wants to get laid,” did we really need to spend about a quarter of this episode pretending that Chase’s half-hearted protestations were anything but? The worst part is that we’re supposed to find it charmingly honest that Chase did what he did. There are no negative consequences for the character; worse, Benedict actually asks him out after quitting the job, so he benefits from his sexual favoritism. It makes her look like an idiot–yes, it’s really impressive that he stood up for her like he did, he couldn’t possibly have an ulterior motive–and it doesn’t do anything new for us story-wise. Every single major female character on the show (all, what, three of them? Four, right, there was Sela Ward) has had her physical appearance be one of the most important aspects of her presence. Where’s our female Taub? (And no, 13 doesn’t count.)

Anyway, who cares, that was boring, and the sitcom stuff was boring too. House uses a hooker as a masseuse, Cuddy objects, House thinks she’s behaving irrationally, there’s a funny bit, House gives in, House gets to hang at Cuddy’s. As Wilson explains to House, in essence, “You put up with the crazy, and then you get to have sex with them,” which is the sort of line I’d expect to hear on one of those Fat Ugly Schlub Weds Hot Shrew shows. It makes no sense coming from Wilson, who we’ve seen over and over again is much more into relationships for the emotional aspect, and it makes no sense as an argument to House, seeing as how he’s been going to hookers for years when he needs sex. The episode tries to back pedal at the end by saying this was all House’s attempts to sabotage his relationship with Cuddy, but it’s still just really, really blah. I laughed at the gay prostitute masseuse, I’ll give it that much (and wow, Cuddy just strips right down in her office, I guess?), but… blah.

They do try to tie this in with the PotW, and I guess we can cut them some credit because the connection isn’t as forced as it might’ve been. The Patient is a schizophrenic (huh, I guess that not-establishing-an-identity thing was on purpose?), and her symptoms at the start of the episode were caused by the meds she was taking for the disease. Once she gets to the hospital and goes off her meds, those symptoms leave, but then the hallucinations start. It’s an easy enough fix, once House figures it all out, but the patient never told her husband about her illness, and now he’s freaking out. (Not to mention her attempt at obfuscation with a lie about an abusive ex that sends poor hubby into the city to get his ass handed to him by an innocent man named Carl. The patient is lucky Carl could hold his own in a fight, or she’d have gotten her husband in jail in addition to everything else.) The husband wants House to give him an excuse to dump the wife, and House feeds him the same line about relationships being “hard.” I don’t think anyone would disagree with him (although I’m not sure “giving up my hooker massage” is equivalent to “my wife sometimes thinks I’m a demon”), but just because he’s right, doesn’t make him fun to watch.

Stray Observations:

* Every time they do one of those hallucination/trip/special effects sequences, I wonder how many seasons it’ll be before House does his first exorcism.

body, facial, massage, singapore, spa, treatments

Massage has long been associated with soothing the body and healing the spirit, a delightful, almost decadent relaxation experience that is for many a special occasion gift to oneself.

Less well known, however, are the real medical benefits of massage therapy, which can be a tremendously effective treatment for those living with the debilitating effects of chronic pain.

Chris Bernais, a licensed massage therapist in Westport, has been working with clients with intractable pain for 12 years, and has helped many get past the desperate feeling that their pain would remain forever a part of their lives.

Says Bernais, “I am not your typical massage therapist. I like to work with people who have endured a lot of pain. I do not diagnose, but I can treat, and work together with the client to find the answers.

“Massage is but one of the key components of healing. I help clients realize they need to eat right, stretch, exercise, and rest. I make people aware of what they are doing that is setting off their issue.”

For example, for those clients with chronic headaches, Bernais will focus on how they sleep, how they sit in front of the computer, how they drive, what sports they engage in. “We need to be aware of what we are doing. I can work out what is sore, and create an environment to help a person heal, but clients have to be aware of what they do that is making this happen.”

Bernais points out that pain is often referred from one part of the body to another. “For example, headache pain does not always come from the head. Many times it is referred up from tension in the neck.

“I watch how a client’s body functions to see where the pain is, and where it is coming from in order to figure out how to alleviate it.”

“In the process of massage therapy, I help clients work out the soft tissue damage or work the obstructions that are causing them limited range of motion or the knots that are causing them pain. After I break up the area that is causing them trouble, their job is to heal from within.”

For Bernais, 43, massage therapy is a second career. His previous work was in the construction industry, where he was an excavation contractor, a far cry from the kind of work involved in massage therapy. However, he had been in two motorcycle accidents, one of which was life threatening, and he had experienced firsthand the kind of pain that many of his current clients often face.

“I know about pain. I know what it feels like and what it’s like to live with it and without it. I am a miracle of modern medicine. I was born with a congenital heart defect, and had heart surgery at the age of eight years old. I also had two motorcycle accidents, one of which was life threatening. I almost lost my leg from the knee down.”

It was during his recovery from one of the motorcycle accidents that he realized he related to those who helped him to recover and knew he had a strong interest in and gift for helping others.

He declines to be the answer for all problems. “Sometimes things are out of my scope. If it’s out of my range, I will tell the client. I am here to help, but I will tell people if I can’t help them. What I do is real, not smoke and mirrors.”

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Getting a massage doesn’t have to mean making time to keep an appointment in a treatment room. Bristol-based therapist Kate Stuart comes to people in their offices. Suzanne Savill reports

There is a massage table, towels, and a selection of oils. In fact, everything looks exactly as you might expect of a massage therapist’s treatment room.

Except it isn’t.

The room is actually a meeting room at the offices of Bristol-based payroll software company Qtac, and the massage table is a portable one that has been brought in by Kate Stuart.

She regularly visits the company, and others in the Bristol area, to provide on-site massages for staff.

When we meet a typical session has been taking place, with Kate massaging people with neck and shoulder problems associated with desk-based jobs, and giving sports massage to those who have sustained injuries playing sport.

At first glance it may seem that these staff are lucky to have such a benevolent employer.

However, Kate points out that it is not only employees who benefits from her treatments.

“For employers it helps generate goodwill among their staff. In effect, they’re saying to them that they know they have busy jobs and can be under stress but they’re prepared to offer something to help them,” she says.

“It also means that staff aren’t having to take time off work to go for treatments for problems such as sports injuries, as they can get sports massage when I visit.

“It’s not costing them anything, as all they have to do is let me come in and use a room. People pay for themselves, although if an employer wants to offer a subsidy they can.

“It’s up to the employer whether they let staff have treatments in their lunch break or make up the time in another way.”

Peter Prater owner of Qtac payroll software, Cypherseal, and The Payroll Department, says: “It’s a great way of offering a benefit to staff.

“The fact that staff can have a treatment with Kate like a massage during their working day is great for de-stressing.

“It is also a good way to boost morale, which is an important element of ensuring you have a happy workforce.

“We don’t have to pay for the treatments – Kate comes in and offers them at a very good rate.

“The benefit to staff is that they can do it during their working day, which is great for mums or other people who may not have time to have these treatments after work. It also helps with the general health and well-being of my team.”

Kate, 41, of Bradley Stoke, knows all too well what it is like to work in a pressurised office environment. She was an IT project manager until she volunteered for redundancy from her job in 2009.

Instead of trying to find similar work, she decided to completely change her career after experiencing the benefits of massage.

“I used to play softball for Great Britain and suffered a serious rotator cuff injury.

“I wanted to help people get back to sport and get back to fitness in the way that I’d been helped.

“I also knew from working in a very busy office how difficult I had found it to find time for the treatments that I needed, and how occupational and life stresses can affect the body and hinder performance.”

So she set up her company Creating Change Naturally, and set about building a corporate client base, in addition to working with clients from her therapy room based in Bradley Stoke and at the Physioelite clinic in Stoke Gifford.

“I’d originally trained as a massage therapist in 2000 with a view to changing career direction, but due to many different factors at the time I decided to take a ‘stop gap’ job as a project manager instead,” she says.

“Even though I had a full- time job, I decided to study further and expand my skills. I took courses in reiki and Indian head massage, going on to qualify as an ayurvedic Indian head massage therapist and Level 2 reiki practitioner.

“Both treatments are aimed at reducing stress and tension in the body – something I’d experienced day-to-day in my job and had also seen in others. It meant I already had a skill when I decided to take redundancy and stop commuting every day to Cheltenham and working long hours in an office.”

After taking redundancy, Kate studied sports and remedial massage with the Oxford School of Sports Massage, achieving a BTEC Level 5 qualification, the highest of its type in the UK, and membership of the Institute of Sport and Remedial Massage (ISRM).

“That involved a lot of anatomy work and written papers, but it was worth it,” she says.

In order to meet business executives after setting up her company with the idea of providing massage within other firms, Kate joined Business Network International (BNI), which has an Avon and Monmouth branch.

“I’ve found BNI a very useful way of being able to tell business people about the treatments I offer,” says Kate, who joined in December 2009 and has so far received 31 new clients as a result of referral marketing.

Her list of corporate clients includes her old company, Vertex Data Services in Cheltenham, to which she now returns regularly to give massages to staff.

“Whatever the size of a business, its success is dependent upon its team of employees, so it makes sense for employers to invest in the well-being of their staff,” says Kate.

“Happy, healthy employees who can manage stress and anxiety are a great asset to any company.”

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The scalp, face, neck and shoulders are all areas where tension is most likely to build up. With a combination of strokes, blockages are cleared and the body’s natural energy flow is restored creating balance, harmony and clarity. It can help with headaches, stress, jaw ache, sinusitis, eye strain, mental tiredness, depression, anxiety etc.

Neck and shoulder massage helps lymphatic drainage, decreases muscle tension and stimulates circulation. This helps to disperse waste material from the body and distribute oxygen to all the tissues. Helps to restore joint movement, and stretches and mobilizes the tissues of the neck and shoulder.

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Several studies have shown massage therapy and other touch techniques are effective at reducing fibromyalgia symptoms. including pain and fatigue. New research shows that another complementary health therapy, yoga, benefits fibromyalgia patients as well.

Fibromyalgia that affects 11 million individuals in the U.S., and carries an annual direct cost for care of more than $20 billion, according to a press release from Elsevier, which published the study results.

Standard care includes medications accompanied by exercise and coping skills approaches, yet drug therapies are generally only 30-percent effective in relieving symptoms and 20-percent effective in improving function, the press release noted.

In the new study, patients participating in a Yoga of Awareness program showed significantly greater improvement in fibromyalgia symptoms and functioning compared to patients on a standard fibromyalgia-care program.

Following treatment, patients assigned to the yoga program showed significantly greater improvements on standardized measures of fibromyalgia symptoms and functioning than did the control group, including pain, fatigue, and mood, and in pain catastrophizing, acceptance and other coping strategies.

“Although yoga has been practiced for millennia, only recently
have researchers begun to demonstrate yoga’s effects on persons suffering from persistent pain,” commented lead investigator James W. Carson, Ph.D., of Oregon Health & Science University.

“The Yoga of Awareness program stands in contrast to previous multimodal interventions with [fibromyalgia] patients in that it integrates a wide spectrum of yoga-based techniques, [including] postures, mindfulness meditation, breathing exercises, application of yogic principles to optimal coping and group discussions,” Carson continued. “The findings of this pilot study provide promising preliminary support for the beneficial effects of yoga in patients with [fibromyalgia].”

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Evanston, IL – October 25, 2010 /PRNewswire/ — According to a recent consumer survey by the American Massage Therapy Association® (AMTA®), massage therapy is on the rise as a method of improving personal health. As interaction increases among massage therapists and their clients, both can benefit from tips on what to expect from their professional health relationship.

These tips, released in conjunction with National Massage Therapy Awareness Week, October 24 – October 30, 2010, cover issues of respect and privacy between the massage therapist and client, and promote dialogue to help select the best massage technique based on the client’s current health conditions.

“These are important tips as massage therapy use continues to rise, especially with people who see a massage therapist for health benefits and stress relief,” says Kathleen Miller-Read, AMTA president.

In fact, researchers from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles recently reported findings demonstrating that people who received a Swedish massage experienced significant decreases in levels of the stress hormone cortisol, which can ultimately lead to a boost in the immune system.

Understanding what to expect in a massage session will aid consumers having their first massage, and guide those who get frequent massages but may be changing therapists or searching for a professional therapist while traveling on business or vacation.

“Whether you are scheduling your first massage, or engaging a new therapist, these guidelines are beneficial to both parties and will help facilitate a positive, relaxing experience that ultimately benefits a person’s overall health,” says Miller-Read.

Massage clients should expect a clean, safe and comfortable environment before, during and after the massage, and should expect a licensed/registered/certified professional massage therapist, working within their scope of practice and in an ethical manner. In turn, massage therapists should expect their clients to be courteous and respectful of them as healthcare professionals.

The American Massage Therapy Association offers the following expectations for the massage recipient and the massage therapist:

What Should Someone Expect from their Massage & Massage Therapist?

• A clean, safe and comfortable environment before, during and after the massage
• Respect, courtesy, confidentiality and dignity
• Privacy while changing and right to remove clothing only to their level of comfort for the massage
• Draped appropriately by a sheet, towel or blanket, with only the area being massaged exposed
• A licensed/registered/certified professional massage therapist, working within their scope of practice and in an ethical manner
• Option to ask questions of the massage therapist and receive professional responses
• Determine if there will be conversation, music or quiet during the massage
• An explanation of the nature of the massage and techniques to be used in advance of starting the massage
• The right to consent to the massage techniques and approaches, including manual pressure, used in the massage

What Should a Massage Therapist Expect from their Client?

• Respect, courtesy and dignity
• Treated as a healthcare professional
• Timely arrival at massage therapy appointment
• Complete and accurate disclosure of health/medical conditions during intake process
• Communication of expectations of and concerns about the massage
• Payment at time of service
• Reasonable notice (usually 24 hours) in cancelling a massage appointment

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What are the benefits of massage therapy?

The easy answer is for me to blurt out everything that I learned in college, however, the other answer is to reply that this is a heavily loaded question.

There are a multitude of different conditions that massage therapy can provide treatment for.  Massage therapy isn’t just about getting a good (and I’m cringing as I say this) rub down – there are specific treatment protocols for specific injuries and conditions (e.g. tendonitis, plantar fasciitis, frozen shoulder, and sprains). For other conditions that are more related to pain syndromes as a result of repetitive movements and or occupational postures – education, prevention and a maintenance program play an important role in a successful treatment plan.

There are many factors involved when assessing tissue health. Muscle tension may be due to repetitive movements from work, play or hobbies that apply stress and strain to the body. Sports injuries and car accidents can create trauma to the tissues and affect the general health of muscles, ligaments and joints.

When you are injured or if you are feeling discomfort in your body, receiving massage therapy treatments can help to eliminate pain, and restore health to the tissues. I believe it’s important to work directly with the muscles, ligaments, bones and joints, as all of these areas are compromised with an injury. I feel it is important to assess and treat all the components to ensure a well-rounded treatment and to get the desired results – clients achieving optimal health in their bodies. I cannot stress enough, the importance of committing to a maintenance program to help clients achieve this goal.

Working with patients to create a specific treatment plan involves communication and education between patient and therapist. When providing a successful treatment plan we want to find out what factors are contributing to their symptoms, educate on predisposing factors (things that could be contributing to the pain or dysfunction) look at how the work environment is set up (ergonomics), and provide awareness to patients on repetitive movements and how this can affect the body negatively. A successful treatment plan includes spending some time on stretches and strengthening exercises that can aid in the recovery process.

A maintenance program is different for each individual depending on his or her needs. Treatments can start out a little more frequent in the beginning and then taper off as the client starts to feel better and their tissue health increases. Usually we work on getting the client in just before they start to feel their aliments creeping back. This is usually once a month or less.

Receiving regular massage will provide clients with education and help keep tissues healthy, which can prevent injuries and therefore decrease your discomfort. It is also a great way to decrease stress, headaches and promote relaxation.

The reason I think it was a loaded question is, as with most things, there is no easy answer to having optimal health. For the most part I believe this to be true with massage therapy too. To have optimal health we must take ownership in how our bodies got into the ‘state’ they are presenting.  Working together as a patient/therapist team gives us the grounds for a solid and well-rounded treatment.

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