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"When I have a client who comes in with a condition I'm not that familiar with, I can look up what symptoms my client is likely to have and get an idea of a treatment plan before they arrive - it really impresses my clients." -NY therapist
Clinical Massage Therapy is set up in a template format, making it easy to use. Most chapters follow this format.

  • Let's say a client comes into your clinic with edema (swelling) in one ankle. It's been a while since you've worked with someone who has edema and you need to refresh your memory, or maybe your training did not formally cover treating this condition specifically.
  • You turn to the chapter on edema, where you find a definition and a description of the lymphatic system and its anatomy.
  • Many things can cause a swollen ankle. Is the edema present because the client spent the last 10 hours sitting on a plane; or because the client is pregnant; or because the ankle was just recently sprained? Perhaps the edema is due to a cardiac pathology, or an infection. Since it is important to understand the many potential causes of this common condition, we list the causes next.
  • Then, we give a snapshot of the client's symptoms as understood in the medical literature. A client may not experience every symptom listed (depending on the presentation), but will at least have one.
  • Using SOAP (subjective, objective, assessment, plan) notes to organize your assessment and records? We provide you with health history questions to ask the client, observations and palpation findings that you may notice if the client has the condition, and range of motion and orthopedic testing results. Not sure how to do a special test that's listed? Simply turn to Appendix C for details of the standard tests we use in the book.

    • *You can easily adapt the SOAP format to the HOPS (history, observations, palpation, special tests) method.

  • Before you actually work with the client, there may be contraindications to treatment. For example, if the swelling is due to an infection, you wouldn't want to spread it. We describe contraindications for each condition.
  • Now you're ready for the treatment itself. On one side of the page we give a number of treatment goals . On the other side we list the client positioning, the techniques used, the parts of the body worked on, any trigger point referral patterns, hydrotherapy and any exercises you'd include in the treatment.

    *Not familiar with a technique we name? Just turn to the chapters on various techniques for complete descriptions. You might recognize the technique, but perhaps call it by another name.

  • If your client takes an active role in his or her health care, improvement is faster. So we give you self-care goals and self-care plans in the next section for the client to do at home or work.
  • If you are dealing with third-party payments, or just want to know how long or how often to treat, we provide treatment frequency and expected outcomes.
  • Finally, there may be other conditions covered in this book that are related to edema. We list these in a reference box at the end of each chapter.

    It's that simple!