Massage therapy including myotherapy is the practice of kneading or manipulating a person’s muscles and other soft tissue in order to improve their wellbeing or health. It is a form of manual therapy that includes holding, moving, and applying pressure to the muscles, tendons, ligaments, and fascia. Regular treatment can completely transform your physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing. Massage therapy is for anyone and everyone, from new-borns to the elderly, there is no limit to its benefits. To start off the massage with a senior citizen, you put some oil on the senior’s back, then spend ten to twenty seconds spreading it all over, allowing them time to get used to your touch. Move your hands slowly up and down their back, avoiding their spine the entire while. Now, move circularly across the back while applying the friction technique.
In older people, massage has been linked to improved blood flow and immunity, reducing blood pressure and accelerating the healing process. It has also been shown to help seniors suffering from chronic pain, such as arthritis. In fact, massage therapy can positively affect nearly every one of the body’s systems. With regular massage, seniors can experience an improved quality of life, increased energy levels and feel younger and healthier overall. Massage therapy offers numerous benefits to the entire body. It helps ease joint and muscle pain and can even reduce the increased levels of stress that tend to come with aging.
For senior citizens, geriatric massage is one of the best ones to perform on them. The Benefits of Geriatric Massage. Geriatric massage is massage therapy for people who are in their older years. This type of massage takes into account the many factors that influence an aging body, including one’s overall health status, medical conditions, and medication use. A geriatric massage technique employs light, gentle massage and passive stretching to ease muscle tension without excessive friction on the skin. Geriatric massage benefits those who are less physically active by helping to promote circulation and can help to improve posture and provide an overall sense of well-being.
Although massage is great for senior citizens, there are some areas you should be careful of. These are areas of the body where deep, sustained pressure should be avoided because of the structures that lie beneath. Those areas are the anterior and posterior triangles of the neck, suprasternal notch, sternum, axilla, spinal column, umbilical area, inguinal triangle, popliteal fossa, and the antecubital fossa. Some skin conditions such as severe acne, eczema, psoriasis, cold sores and open sores should prevent or restrict massage treatment to minimise the risk of more severe conditions developing.