Geriatric Massage

A Growing Trend
By Amber Mills.

We know that the baby boomers make up a huge portion of our population and as the years keep passing by, the baby boomers are aging. According to the National Institute on Aging, in 2020 one in five Americans will be over 65 years of age. If you haven’t had additional training in geriatric massage, it is something you should strongly consider. As the geriatric population grows, so could your massage practice.

Some of the key benefits of massage are stress relief, pain relief, increased circulation and improved sleep, and that’s just naming a few. Those key benefits are things that all geriatric clients can benefit from. Stress and sleep problems can increase as a person ages, which makes massage extremely valuable to older adults who want to maintain an active lifestyle. Massage can also help the geriatric population by addressing specific needs of those that have age-related diseases (arthritis, Alzheimer’s disease, osteoporosis, diabetes and stroke). To insure that you are providing the best care to your geriatric patients, it is important that you have additional training in geriatric massage because when working with the geriatric population you will need to design your massage treatment plan to the specific health conditions of your client and even modify your massage strokes.

To learn more about geriatric massage, check out a great article written by Sharon Puszko in Massage Today, “Aging Gracefully: The Timeless Benefits of Massage”. In the article, Sharon defines geriatric massage and discusses the characteristics and key benefits of geriatric massage.

Amber Mills – Curriculum Director

“It is my hope that our students walk away from Soma with confidence in their clinical massage skills and their ability to naturally help the body heal.”