MT Warns of Fire Dangers From Massage Sheets
According to a report in the Boulder Daily Camera, massage therapist Alison Rothman’s home caught fire earlier this year when a laundry basket of massage sheets ignited in her kitchen. Rothman had just removed the sheets from her dryer and left them in the laundry basket when she left the house. Normally, she lets the sheets air out a bit, but she didn’t have time to do that on this day.
“I came home to my house on fire,” Rothman says. “The combination of heat from the dryer and being in my hot, sunny kitchen caused the sheets to spontaneously combust.”
Boulder Fire Marshal Dave Lowrey explained that the oils used in massages are absorbed into the sheets, which can then cause the oils to ignite. “If the sheets are wadded up and that heat can’t dissipate, it heats the sheets to basically their ignition temperature, then they catch fire,” Lowrey says.
“I’ve done massage for 15 years and never in my life thought that would have happened,” Rothman says. She hopes sharing her experience will help other massage therapists avoid the same thing happening to them.
Read more at www.dailycamera.com/boulder-county-news/ci_29567752/boulder-woman-spreads-cautionary-word-massage-sheets.
MTF Announces Winner of 2015 Practitioner Case Report Contest
The gold award winner of the Massage Therapy Foundation’s 2015 Practitioner Case Report Contest is ABMP member Cathy Meryanos for her project titled “Utilizing Chair Massage to Address Women’s Health in Rural Africa.”
Meryanos is part of Healing Our Sisters Across the Ocean, a therapeutic massage program primarily aimed at healing African women’s debilitating musculoskeletal injuries caused by traditional head panning (carrying heavy loads on the head).
The case report demonstrated the need and acceptance of therapeutic massage in a country where health care is limited and rehabilitative services are virtually nonexistent. A massage therapy program in this environment will promote an affordable and sustainable service for hardworking women with few health-care options, as well as an economic opportunity for women who become trained in giving massage.
Visit www.massagetherapyfoundation.org/past-practitioner-case-report-contest-winners/2015 for more information on the case report.
ABMP Webinar CE is Now Free for Members
ABMP has announced that all webinar CE is now free for members, making it easier for massage therapists and bodyworkers to access online education and save money.
“We’ve taken on the cost of CE hours to make it easier for our members,” says ABMP President Les Sweeney. “We strive to add value to ABMP membership and want our members to have more money to spend on other CE providers, and on themselves.”
The newly designed ABMP Education Center makes it easy to sort through the 100+ on-demand webinars by CE provider, webinar topic, and intended audience. ABMP members can watch each webinar on demand, then pass a short quiz to earn free CE. All courses are NCBTMB approved, but eligibility for CE depends on state board requirements.
In the future, non-ABMP members will be able to watch select featured webinars from time to time, but free CE will only be available to members.
Visit the new ABMP Education Center at www.abmp.com/ce.