Massage Therapy & Cancer

People with cancer have a range of health care needs and considerations. The massage therapist working with the client who has cancer requires: a basic knowledge base about cancer; an awareness of contraindications and safety factors involving clinical judgement and decision-making; an understanding of how to adapt the massage therapy plan to be compatible with medical treatment protocols; and an appreciation of how to develop treatment plans which accommodate the various states and stages of health experienced by clients with cancer.

Massage practitioners often express concern about whether they have sufficient knowledge about cancer or understanding of how massage therapy interacts with cancer progression and cancer therapies. Massage Therapy and Cancer begins with an exploration of what cancer is and how it spreads, the rationales associated with medical treatment modalities, and the states of emotional and physical health experienced by cancer patients as a result of their illness and the treatments they usually receive for it. This information is then combined with current understanding of the effects, risks, and efficacies of massage therapy. The result is a manual which offers reasonable answers and practical information about massage therapy and clients who have cancer.

About the Author

Debra Curties has been a massage therapist since 1984, and has been teaching Pathology and Clinical Theory to massage therapy students since 1987. She is the Executive Director and one of the owners of Sutherland-Chan School in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Her love of teaching and of the massage therapy profession have merged in many of the roles she has assumed in the past 15 years, including President of the American Massage Therapy Association's Council of Schools, founding member of the Canadian Massage Therapy Alliance and the Canadian Council of Massage Therapy Schools, and contributor to the Ontario Core Curriculum and the Ontario College of Massage Therapists' Standards of Practice. She currently sits on the Board of Trustees of the AMTA Foundation. She is the 1998 recipient of the Ontario Massage Therapist Association's Meritorious Service Award and the 2000 recipient of the AMTA Council of Schools Meritorious Service Award.