01/04/19

Open Clinic- Session 2

1 hour

What happened during the session:
During this session I massaged a hockey player, she trains 4 times a week plays a game once a week and plays at a high intensity. Over the last couple of weeks in the run-up to varsity, she has been training a considerable amount more than she usually does and being bent over to play the sport she has started to get an aching pain in her back which she states feels like muscle soreness. I tested the clients’ range of motion to see if she had any pain during flexion, extension, adduction, abduction, internal rotation and external rotation which she experienced no increase in pain. I also tested elevation, depression, protraction, and retraction to have the same result, no increase in pain.
The client stated that the pain they were feeling has the only recently started as they increased the training session the pain increased and it felt like what she would usually feel when experiencing DOMs, Stating she only came in due to muscle soreness and does not feel it could be anything other than overworked muscles.
After checking the range of motion and speaking to the client I decided to get straight into massaging the client. I spent 15 minutes performing the initial consultation form with this client getting in-depth to check there were no underlying issues and then continued to massage the client for 15 minutes on each side of the back totaling a 30-minute massage. I used normal lotion as they had never had a massage before and although not having any allergies ‘that they know of’ I played it safe and went with the hypoallergenic lotion.
Now that varsity is over this client will be able to ease off of training and relax more and so she wanted maintenance to relieve some stress and tension from her muscles.

Areas for improvement:

1. Although I tested the client’s active range of motion I did not test passive or resisted and could have found issues if I had proceeded to do so.
2. Some clients will come in purely for maintenance and the feeling of relaxation experienced after a massage and therefore, filling out a consultation form as quickly as possible will allow them to have longer time being massaged and feeling relaxed. Once realizing the client only wanted maintenance I didn’t need to go into so much detail but as this was the first time that I had seen the client I went more in-depth to check that there weren’t any underlying issues. In future, with this client I will be able to get into the massage a lot quicker as a result of this session however, it took longer than it should have on the consultation form.
3. It would really increase the time it takes me to fill out a consultation form if I was able to write in shorthand when taking notes and use abbreviations that are recognized by other sports therapists to help me to fill in the form quicker whilst still being able to understand the notes that I have made.