Massage for the Dying

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Comment by Carlyn Molloseau on May 9, 2011 at 4:26pm

This is the first group I saw after joining this website and it made me think of a client that I just had. She was an elderly woman, and was in quite a lot of pain, any sort of touch/hands on massage was horrible for her. So, I did a Light Healing Touch session on her, a type of calming energy work, and it made her and the others in the room feel very peaceful. I highly recommend it!

Comment by Ariana Vincent, LMT, MTI, BCTMB on April 27, 2011 at 1:07am

‎"Geriatric Massage" and "Serving the Dying" were just added to Ariana Vincent's menu of massage therapy services

 http://www.arianainstitute.com /services.htm

 

Comment by Robert Thomas Parker on April 22, 2011 at 9:48am

For all who are interested in caring for the elderly or the dying, I would like to recommend this beautiful and invaluable book: "From the Heart through the Hands" by Dawn Nelson. It has not only served my practice, but has deepened all the relationships in my life.

Comment by Mary Beth Kennedy on April 21, 2011 at 1:15pm

I am a massage therapy graduate, still uncertified (the test sucks, so hard).  Anyway, I never dreamed I'd think about hospice massage until last year when my best friend was dying of colon cancer. 

Massaging her feet, shoulders, head, legs...gave her relief that narcotic pain killers couldn't.

I have never had such a fullfilling experience in such an awful time.

Now I am considering doing hospice massage for a living instead of working on "healthy" people.  The dying need massage more than anyone.

Comment by Erin Romanin on April 19, 2011 at 11:35am

This is a powerful page Ariana - thanks for creating it. It is such an important topic that people are often uncomfortable to approach.

 

Comment by Katharine Koeppen on March 9, 2011 at 12:01am

I have been working with stage 4 cancer clients, using essential oils for many quality of life aspects in palliative care. I'm also training nurses in clinical aromatherapy for hospice care.

http://www.aromaceuticals.com/classes

My next foundational aromatherapy class is a 1-day intensive that will be given on April 2 in Dallas.

Comment by Robert Thomas Parker on March 4, 2011 at 5:56pm

I also am a volunteer hospice massage therapist with Vitas, Citrus Valley, and Inland, hospices here in southern California My Web Site 

follow the link for additional data, trials, explanations, etc. 

Comment by Laurie Leehan on February 26, 2011 at 9:12am

I have been a hospice volunteer for several years and was wondering how to get involved in end of life massage. I am also a reiki master and feel a combination of massage and reiki would be very helpful for them.

Comment by Jonathan L. Sullivan on February 21, 2011 at 11:31pm

Ariana, you're a gem. Thanks for all your efforts!

As for me, personal experiences helping my father before he died while on leave from my Occupational Therapist position at a 200 bed long term care facility, then returning to work to find so many pt's. had passed away in my absence, then residents seemed to decide to leave this earth en masse after i returned. Needless to say there was not much time to grieve, which led me to leave my job to work for myself again, with a "healthy" massage clientele. As i began working with expectant mothers and attend with labor and delivery at a half dozen natural births, my balance was restored so that i could work more effectively than ever with dying folks. As far as classes, Tracy Walton's course was great for Caring for Clients with Cancer, and of course the Daybreak Geriatric Massage Institute's Lev 1 & especially Level 2 workshops were very helpful for me, as well as others, but it seems other things beside technique coursework helped to develop the empathy or compassion to do this job well. Caring for clients with specialty massage right up to the day they passed taught me much. Working with hospice clients and their families, sitting in Centering prayer and contemplative meditation has helped enormously to overcome the ego that wants to save everyone all the time, and allow a normal amount of grief to process.

I've learned much from listening to the stories others have told in lectures from Naomi Feil's Validation Therapy, or Jim Comer's books on family dynamics with a dying parent, to specialty massage programs i tried to develop for a hospice company that later didn't utilize it taught me a lot about the death and dying industry, as well as attending annual conferences like the Texas Ass'n. for Services and Homes for the Aged for almost ten years has enlightened me to the struggles those providers have daily addressing the needs of our elders. There are so many classes i still want to take, but in the meantime, i learn from each of my clients everyday, and the hospice clients seem to know better than others what life is all about. As i've said before, it is sacred ground we walk on. When we're with them every bush is burning, and we just have to remember to take off our shoes.(with thanks to Elizabeth Barret Browning)

Comment by Lisa Mertz on February 21, 2011 at 7:34pm

I took a weekly course called Spiritual Care for the Dying with Sogyal Rinpoche's Rigpa sangha, also massage for palliative care at Mt. Sinai medical school and oncology massage at Memorial Sloan Kettering.  I'm training now at Hospice Care Network, Long Island, to do hospice massage.  I teach a full semester oncology massage course, taking students for weekly clinical experiences at a hospital for 12 weeks.  Working with hospice is something I've been wanting to do for a long time.

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