Meet the Staff Site Map Contact Us

Extended Search

Needles, Supplies & Equipment

Herbs, Nutrients, Supplements

Seminars, Education & Services

Quick Links
Current Issue
Previous Issues
Author Guidelines
Online-Only News
Editorial Calendar
Columnists
Acupuncture Links
FAQs
Herbs & Botanicals
Vitamins, Minerals and Dietary Supplements

Newsletters

To Your Health
AT News Update
AT Deals & Events

AT News Update
e-mail newsletter Subscribe Today

Alternative Health News

When a Client Crosses the Line
The sexual assault allegations against Al Gore has elicited much commentary about clients crossing the line sexually. Regardless of the veracity of this particular claim, it is an important topic to explore in-depth. Some clients may "test the waters" about sexual services, while others blatantly cross the line. Massage practitioners must know how to appropriately deal with those situations.

Taking a Stand Against Childhood Obesity
According to a 2005 report published by the Institute of Medicine, "Over the past three decades, [the rate of childhood obesity] has more than doubled for preschool children aged 2 to 5 years and adolescents aged 12 to 19 years, and it has more than tripled for children aged 6 to 11 years.

Falls to Remember
It's September! Hope you had a wonderful summer. This year fall will be really interesting because of a very important election. America now has two classes, a ruling class and the rest of us.

2010 FSMTB Annual Meeting Held in Member Board Jurisdiction of Puerto Rico
The fifth annual Federation of State Massage Therapy Boards (FSMTB) conference will be held October 7-9 at the El San Juan Hotel & Casino in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Registration is now open.

Research in Review: Manual Physical Therapy Techniques for LBP
Those who stay current with literature will be familiar with the low back pain clinical prediction rule (CPR) that has been in development for low back pain patients for the past few years. This important and unique work has been authored mainly by Cleland, Fritz, Childs, et al.

Soft Tissue Pain: Calcific Tendinitis
Calcific tendinitis in the shoulder is a soft-tissue pain complaint that may be acute but is usually chronic, and affects the rotator cuff tendons. Its symptoms somewhat mimic other conditions such as adhesive capsulitis, rotator cuff disorders, shoulder impingement syndrome.

The Changing World of Education
Back in December 2003, I attended a lecture by William A. Wulf, then president of the National Academy of Engineering. One of his comments that struck me was on the difference between small improvements in technology that make something already being done easier and on the continuing and often unexpected social changes stemming from huge quantitative changes in technology.

What About My Feet?

During a recent session with a regular client of mine, we ended up having a conversation about feet. I cannot remember how the topic came up - maybe he was having particularly bad pain in his feet that day - but we ended up discussing what kind of shoes we wear the majority of the time.

The conversation made me realize that for as much time as I spend working peoples' feet, I have not yet written exclusively about feet and massage, or self-care of feet for practitioners.

Massage therapists are one of the groups of professionals who spend most of their time working on their feet; in addition to pulling, pushing, bending, leaning and lifting. We have a rather "physical" job, and after giving five to eight massages in one day, I know my feet have frequently felt the effects of this.

Revving Up the Positive Press
Donate to the Foundation for Chiropractic Progress (FCP) today and you could drive away in a 2011 Ford Mustang! The FCP has unveiled a new-car giveaway. Here's how you could win: Every 2010 contributor will be given a chance to win.

Major Massage Associations Call for CA Legislators to Kill Bill
After months of discussions regarding the infamous "anti-prostitution" law, the California Massage Therapy Council (CAMTC), American Massage Therapy Association-California chapter (AMTA-CA) and Associated Bodywork and Massage Professionals (ABMP) have ended negotiations and have called for an end to Assembly Bill 1822.

Posture Evaluations, Part 3: The Shoulder and Scapula
Let's discuss normal shoulder resting posture so we can determine if there is a link between a postural deviation and pain. Static postural analysis is performed before range-of-motion examinations, orthopedic testing, movement pattern assessments and palpation analysis.

Palpatory Musculoskeletal Findings as Early Indicators of Visceral Disease
Throughout the history of manipulative therapy, three major professions, osteopathy, chiropractic and physiotherapy, have incorporated their own significant variations of spinal manipulative therapy into practice.

Make Patient Financing a Part of Your Financial Policy
Many patients today are facing higher out-of-pocket costs, including increased deductibles and self-pay portions, that can make moving forward with chiropractic care a challenge.

Advanced Stretching: Using Neural Inhibition to Enhance the Stretch, Part 1
There is an art and a science to practicing manual and movement therapies. The science yields a set of guidelines that provide the structure for our therapy. We develop this science as an extension of our understanding of the anatomy, physiology, and kinesiology of the body.

A Chiropractic Skeptic No More
Anyone intimately involved in trying to make chiropractic more available to and accepted by the masses will be quick to tell you that changing perception is key. The following letter to the editor was submitted recently by a chiropractic patient who calls herself a former "Queen of Chiropractic Skeptics."

Police Group Seeks Even More Control Over Massage Board

After controversial amendments were made to the infamous "anti-prostitution" law of adding "hostile" law enforcement professionals to a California massage board, the bill gets even more contentious with its most recent language.

IMA's Demise
Will Green, the owner and founder of the International Massage Association (IMA), a business that was once a major insurer for the massage therapy community, said in an interview that depression was behind his failure to pay for more than $600,000 in insurance premium payments, an action that has effectively destroy the business.

Combating Joint Degeneration With Orthotics
Degenerative joint disease (osteoarthrosis) increases in frequency as we age. As society gets older, therefore, chiropractors will encounter more patients afflicted with painful joint conditions.

Working With Local Employers: 10 Marketing Mistakes to Avoid
When your practice is about meeting needs, the market is wide open to you. But to meet human needs, you have to reach people where they are. Why not market where people spend 47.5 hours of their week, on average?

Functional Exercise and Joint Movement
Fundamentally, exercise is about movement, and lots of it. The base foundation of functional movement is proper joint mobility and stability. Without adequate mobility and stability of joints in the kinetic chain, you end up with dysfunctional movement.

Joint Motion and Motion Therapy
The use of joint motion for diagnostics and treatment is common in many professions. In fact, at the clinics I oversee, we have 12 orthopedic surgeons and one neurosurgeon, and all agree that they are seeing better outcomes with patients who have some form of motion retention after surgery.

Is Advice Alone Adequate for the Management of Neck Pain?
Over the course of the past dozen years or so, we've seen a continuing push toward greater self-reliance on the part of the patient in medical care. That translates into health care dollar savings for consumers and enhanced profits for insurers.

No Shortage of Happy Chiropractic Patients
The past 12 months have been good - very good - for the chiropractic profession in terms of data supporting the efficacy of chiropractic care. For starters, consider the Wellmark pilot study that suggests chiropractic reduces both costs and need for surgery.

How to Chase a New Patient Away in 60 Minutes or Less, Part 2
For the rest of the "normal" chiropractors who don't have a super-sized, magnetic, Web 92.0, set-it-and-forget-it, make-money-while-you-sleep solution that fulfills your every new-patient dream, what are you to do to prevent yourself from chasing new patients away? Here are a few things to consider.

Postpartum Depression: Nutritional Considerations
A few days after giving birth, 50-85 percent of women (depending on your source) suffer from various degrees of postpartum depression (PPD). The symptoms include one or more of the following: crying, impatience, insomnia, impatience, irritability, loneliness, mood swings, restlessness and sadness.

Take It From Your Peers: You CAN Get Paid to Work in Eldercare and Hospice
My last article focused on keys to opening doors to eldercare and hospice. If you desire to work in these settings, my guess is you have wondered: 1) How do I get my foot in the door? 2) How do I generate a clientele? 3) How can I get paid? All very valid questions!

An Argument for Preventive Care
Employee benefit costs continue rising and health-related expenses affect bottom line more than ever. Innovative ideas have stemmed from the need to address employee concerns within cost constraints.

The Life of Per Henrik Ling
In the early 1800s, Peter Henry Ling (also Per Henrik Ling) was perhaps the first to discover what countless others have since learned in the past centuries: massage is critical for healing pain.

Have You Ever Wondered How Chemotherapy Drugs Work? Part 2
A standard way to classify chemotherapy agents is to put them into one of two categories: cell cycle (phase-specific) and non-cell cycle (non-phase-specific). The cell-cycle drugs, have their greatest killing effect when a cell is dividing whereby certain drugs target specific cell phases.

Making a Difference
Some people can live their whole lives unconcerned with the state of affairs of their community, the friends they have, or the profession they choose. I think we all know someone like this. It seems the only interest in life they have is simply to make more money.

News in Brief
News in Brief: ACC-RAC 2011: Call for Papers; National Adds Two Members to Its "Hall of Honor"; Latest Diplomate Acupuncture Exam Scheduled for October.

E-mail to a Friend | Printer Friendly Version | PDF Version

The Snackwell Effect, Part 2

By Marlene Merritt, DOM, LAc, ACN

The Snackwell Effect, Part 1 talked about how we lost our ability to regulate blood sugar by overwhelming our bodies with cereal, bread and Ho-Ho's. I finished the article by recommending that you (or your patients) measure a few days of carbohydrate intake (not calories or fat, just grams of carbs) and see how far away from the number 72 you were. This article is going to be about how to reverse this whole process.

Dealing with Dangerous Clients

By Laura Christensen, MA, LAc, MAc

Recently, a colleague in another city called to inform me that a patient had been vandalizing acupuncturists' offices around town and, they believed, slashing tires of acupuncturists' cars. He wanted to know if I knew anything about this person, and to warn me. The police had been called, and the victims were trying to put together a case against the person. I will call this person Sally.

Proving East Asian Medicine

By William Morris, DAOM, PhD, LAc

East Asian medical research focuses on quantitative means of proof. This affects the information obtained, thus what become considered best practices. I maintain that the world of East Asian medicine might also be understood through qualitative means. In this article, I address the thinking behind these forms of research and to provide some examples of, and resources for, qualitative methods.

Microcurrent Treatment of Headaches

By Darren Starwynn, OMD, LAc

You will frequently have good success in relieving localized bodily pain with microcurrents by simply "circling the dragon"; that is, stimulating where it hurts. This is usually not the case, however, in the treatment of headaches. According to the principles of Chinese medicine, headaches are often the result of imbalanced or weakened meridian energies in the body "flushing up" to the head, and so are really referred pain. Applying stimulation to the head only will not dependably relieve a headache and can often aggravate it.

All Rights Reserved, Acupuncture Today, 2010.