Content Outline

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Learning Objectives

1. Describe the essential intentions of giving massage or bodywork to seriously ill persons.
2. Identify the CDC Standard Precautions and their application to massage or bodywork practice.
3. Identify how the authors created a healing environment that met the needs of their clients and themselves.
4. Identify how to prepare for massage therapy or bodywork in the hospital and home care environments, including what items you will need.
5. Define “Comforting Touch” as it’s used in this course, and recognize an example of it in practice.
6. Identify the important contraindications for working with seriously ill people.
7. Identify the common ethical dilemmas that occur when working with people in illness care settings.
8. Define “ethical dissonance” and list the strategies to help you reduce or cope with it.
9. Identify why a mentor and a support system are essential for working in an illness care environment.
10. Describe how to respond appropriately when you feel overwhelmed by the client’s needs and/or overwhelmed by your own feelings.
11. List important characteristics of HIV infection including its prevalence, stages, transmission, and prevention.
12. Define “opportunistic infection” and recognize examples of it.
13. List the most vulnerable areas for bedsores or decubiti in bed-ridden persons, and the best therapeutic actions for them.
14. Describe how to say good-bye and cope with the death of a client.
15. Achieve at least 70% correct on the course test.

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Sample text

"Dementia is a serious problem and body-centered therapists should modify their work in all four of the Bodywork Modification Model areas. Be willing to repeat the instructions or the reasons why you are present. Be prepared to see the person behave very differently from one session to the next or from one minute to the next, in some cases. The most effective therapeutic actions are calming, grounding and centering. In some cases, clients accept only the most slow, gentle and nurturing actions. Clients can become agitated and disoriented if the work is too intense for them. Short sessions (15 to 30 minutes) are best. Some people who have dementia can become extremely suspicious, anxious or easily irritated. Get help if you think the person could harm himself." from Introduction to Skilled Touch for Seriously Ill Persons by Smith and Burch (2007), page 39

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Sample test question

When working with people who have dementia, the most effective therapeutic actions are

a.       planned for long sessions

b.       rapid, stimulating and deep

c.       calming, grounding and centering

d.        acupressure and heat applications

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