February 4, 2009 • 5:35 pm 0
October 28, 2009 • 6:52 pm 0
Fascia Research Congress 2012
October 28, 2009
For Immediate Release
BC’s Registered Massage Therapists
Welcome the World Fascia Research Congress To Vancouver in 2012
On behalf of the Board of Directors of the Massage Therapists’ Association of British Columbia (MTABC), we are pleased to welcome the 2012 World Fascia Research Congress to Vancouver.
“This announcement in Amsterdam, Netherlands today is a recognition of the excellence, quality and commitment of BC’s Registered Massage Therapists (RMTs). Over 700 BC RMTs participated in the 2007 Congress replays, reflecting the impact that this research has on massage therapy” said Damon Marchand, MTABC President.
Our 2012 event will be the third Fascia Congress. The first congress took place in Boston, Massachusetts at Harvard Medical School in 2007. The second Fascia Congress is occurring this week at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. The Vancouver Congress will be the largest, with a delegate registration expected to be over 1,000.
The theme for the 2012 Fascia Congress will be the practical application of research to practice.
“We know that the profession of massage therapy is excited about this research and about this Congress. We look forward to welcoming leading researchers, clinicians and educators from around the world to Vancouver” said Marchand.
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For further information:
Brenda Locke, Executive Director
604-873-4467
locke@massagetherapy.bc.ca
Backgrounder
Fascia Background:
Fascia has both general and special functions in the human organism. As such, it is the subject of a wide range of scientific research. Similarly, fascia and its properties are of central importance to clinicians practicing in various conventional therapies and in the wide range of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) modalities.
Recent scientific research in the field of the human fasciae has resulted in several significant findings. Combined, the results from the worldwide research activities constitute a body of significant and important data. It is our shared vision that it is time to gather together all the latest and best scientific information about the body’s connective tissue matrix.
Future conferences will continue to provide collegial settings for the mutual benefit and collaboration of basic scientists, academics, and professionals engaged in the many clinical practices where fascia is an important consideration.
About Fascia:
Fascia is the soft tissue component of the connective tissue system that permeates the human body. It forms a whole-body continuous three-dimensional matrix of structural support. Fascia interpenetrates and surrounds all organs, muscles, bones and nerve fibers, creating a unique environment for body systems functioning. The scope of our definition of an interest in fascia extends to all fibrous connective tissues, including aponeuroses, ligaments, tendons, retinaculae, joint capsules, organ and vessel tunics, the epineurium, the meninges, the periostea, and all the endomysial and intermuscular fibers of the myofasciae.
There is a substantial body of research on connective tissue generally focused on specialized genetic and molecular aspects of the extracellular matrix. However, the study of fascia and its function as an organ of support has been largely neglected and overlooked for many years. Since fascia serves both global, generalized functions and local, specialized functions, it is a substrate that crosses several scientific, medical, and therapeutic disciplines, both in conventional and complementary/alternative modalities.
Among the different kinds of tissues that are involved in musculoskeletal dynamics, fascia has received comparatively little scientific attention. Fascia, or dense fibrous connective tissues, nevertheless potentially plays a major and still poorly understood role in joint stability, in general movement coordination, as well as in back pain and many other pathologies. One reason why fascia has not received adequate scientific attention in the past decades is that this tissue is so pervasive and interconnected that it easily frustrates the common ambition of researchers to divide it into a discrete number of subunits, which can be classified and separately described. In anatomic displays the fascia is generally removed, so the viewer can see the organs nerves and vessels but fails to appreciate the fascia, which connects, and separates, these structures.
Clinician Perspective on Fascia:
There is increasing interest in certain therapeutic communities in the role that fascia plays in musculoskeletal strain disorders such as low-back instability and postural strain patterns of all types, fibromyalgia, pelvic pain, and respiratory dysfunction, chronic stress injures, as well as in wound healing, trauma recovery and repair. The Fascia Research Congress seeks to present recent findings that advance knowledge of biomechanical and adaptive properties of fascia that may account for clinical observations in health and dysfunction.
The expanding worldwide scientific research on the human fascial tissues forms a body of knowledge pertinent to a wide range of professionals engaged in conventional and CAM modalities, who serve individuals afflicted with specific pathologies or injuries of fascial tissue. The latest research will further the mechanistic understanding of many manual therapies and CAM modalities which contact, mechanically manipulate, penetrate, or otherwise involve fascial tissues.
Filed under: Announcements, Conferences, Research news , congress, fascia, research
September 25, 2009 • 10:58 am 0
IN-CAM and the Holistic Health Research Foundation of Canada are excited to announce the creation of the CANADIAN CAM RESEARCH FUND (CCRF) to ensure continuity of funding opportunities for Canadian CAM researchers and research trainees. The CCRF is now accepting research application submissions.
This competition will replace IN-CAM’s Pilot Research Funding Competition and will be separate from Holistic Health Research Foundation’s Massage Therapy Research Fund competition and other research competitions. This fund will be administered through the Holistic Health Research Foundation of Canada.
Application Deadline:December 15, 2009. Grant recipients will be announced in March 2010.
Read more here
Filed under: Announcements, Funding, Integrative medicine, Research news , CAM, Canadian CAM Research Fund, grant competition
September 23, 2009 • 10:20 pm 0
The International Journal of Therapeutic Massage & Bodywork (IJTMB) is an open access, peer-reviewed publication intended to accommodate the diverse needs of the rapidly-expanding therapeutic massage and bodywork community. Principal sections of the journal span the areas of research, education, and clinical practice.
IJTMB is indexed in the Directory of Open Access Journals, CrossRef, and Healthindex.
| International Journal of Therapeutic Massage & Bodywork (IJTMB): A First-Year Retrospective View Reflecting Google Analytics and Open Journal Systems Sources | |
| Glenn M. Hymel, EdD, LMT | 1-3 |
| Fascia Research II: Second International Fascia Research Congress | |
| Thomas W. Findley, MD, PhD | 4-9 |
| Understanding the process of fascial unwinding | |
| Budiman Minasny, PhD | 10-17 |
| The Integrated Taxonomy of Health Care: classifying both complementary & biomedical practices using a uniform classification protocol | |
| Antony Joseph Porcino, BSc, Colleen MacDougall | 18-30 |
| Letter to the Editor | |
| Jo Smith, MEd (Hons), BHSc, BSc, RMT, Donna Smith, PGDip (TT), BTSM, RMT | 31 |
| Entries for News/Announcements Section for September 09 Issue | |
| Glenn M. Hymel, EdD, LMT | 32-34 |
Filed under: MT research issues, Professional journals, Research news, massage therapy , journal, massage, massage therapy, research
September 15, 2009 • 3:59 pm 0
BMJ 1995;311:485 (19 August) – Statistics notes – Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence
Douglas G Altman, J Martin Bland
“Randomised controlled clinical trials that do not show a significant difference between the treatments being compared are often called “negative.” This term wrongly implies that the study has shown that there is no difference, whereas usually all that has been shown is an absence of evidence of a difference. These are quite different statements.”
“While it is usually reasonable not to accept a new treatment unless there is positive evidence in its favour, when issues of public health are concerned we must question whether the absence of evidence is a valid enough justification for inaction.”
“When we are told that “there is no evidence that A causes B” we should first ask whether absence of evidence means simply that there is no information at all”
Filed under: Evidence Based Practice, MT research issues, Research education , evidence, p-value, RCT
August 14, 2009 • 12:04 pm 0
IN-CAM (Canadian Interdisciplinary Network for CAM research) and the Holistic Health Research Foundation of Canada are both well established organizations which aim to facilitate and support CAM research activities in Canada. We are excited to announce the creation of a joint partnership to carry on an annual CAM research grant competition which will be funded through the Canadian CAM Research Fund to ensure continuity of funding opportunities for Canadian CAM researchers and research trainees.
The first Canadian CAM Research Fund annual grant competition is scheduled to be announced on September 15, 2009. Applications will be due by December 15, 2009. Announcements of grant recipients will be made in March 2010. These deadlines will also apply to future competitions.
For more information, please visit the IN-CAM website: http://www.incamresearch.ca/index.php?id=22,455,0,0,1,0
You may direct questions or comments regarding the Canadian CAM Research Fund to: Ania Kania at akania@ucalgary.ca or Keren Brown at kbrown@holistichealthresearch.ca
Filed under: Funding, Research news , CAM, Canadian CAM Research Fund, cometition, grant competition
August 6, 2009 • 10:50 am 0
The number of papers published on massage using the search terms “massage and clinical trial” and “find all search terms”.
Searching CINAHL and Psycinfo simultaneously in EBSCO gave me these numbers
1990-1999 = 213
2000-2004 = 595
2005-2009 = 1371
These are my numbers. There is no control for “other” types of massage such as cardiac, prostate or other use of rubbing/massage.
A selection team would weed out none MT related uses. How ever in CINAHL and PsychInfo there is, in my experience, less noise in the results than what comes from Medline searches.
This article posted here goes in to detail of the issues around searching for MT research.
Filed under: MT research issues, Research databases , EBSCO, massage therapy, research
August 4, 2009 • 3:51 pm 0
This case highlights the necessity of confirming study result with replication of the initial work.
Research can be faked, how ever more commonly researchers can make a mistake in the study design or their reporting of the results. When clinicians search for research to inform their practises it is crucial for them to be aware of the strength and quality of the research they are intending to use.
Filed under: Evidence Based Practice, MT research issues, Research news , phoney science, research
July 30, 2009 • 5:03 pm 0
News from the MTABC sponsored Second International Fascia Research Congress October 27-30, 2009 at Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
ACCEPTED ABSTRACTS AVAILABLE FOR READING
The abstracts selected for presentation at FRC 2009 are now on the website for reading at http://www.fasciacongress.org/2009/abstracts.htm.
The abstracts are organized into categories and whether for oral presentation or poster presentation within each category. A glossary of terms is also provided.
PROGRAM
An updated program has just been published to the FRC 2009 website at http://www.fasciacongress.org/2009/program.htm. It now shows abstracts scheduled for 1) author paper/oral presentation in concurrent/parallel sessions and 2) author presentation in some plenary session topics.
REGISTRATION
Anyone planning to attend but hasn’t already registered, please do so soon. Space is limited. To register for the conference and/or post congress workshops go to http://www.fasciacongress.org/2009/register.htm and follow the procedure indicated.
POST CONGRESS WORKSHOPS
When registering for the conference, please also consider staying on for a post congress workshop. Based on the number of registrations already received for the post congress workshops, it is feasible to schedule all workshops listed for the day following the main proceedings, Saturday October 31. These special sessions focus on clinical methodologies and topics in fields where the human fascia is a primary focus of practice and/or theory. In all there are 5 full day workshops and 6 half day. The registration fee is 75 Euros / 100 US Dollars for either a full day workshop or two half day. You may also choose to only attend a workshop without having to register for the main conference.
Filed under: Announcements, Conferences, Research education, Research news , Second International Fascia Research Congress
July 25, 2009 • 10:13 pm 1
1st Place Winner – Cynthia Walker
Case Study: The Effects of Massage Therapy On Tempromandibular Joint Pain: PDF
2nd Place Winner – Andrea Dobrostanski
Case Study: The Potential Effect of Massage Therapy on an Undiagnosed Shoulder Restriction : PDF
3rd Place Winner – Margaret Bacon
Case Study: Effects of massage and hydrotherapy for chronic unresolved medial knee pain: PDF
Previous competition winners and their reports can be found here
Filed under: Announcements, MTABC clinical case report awards, Research news , case report, cometition, schools
July 23, 2009 • 4:42 pm 0
1st Place Winner – Erin Perrault
Case Study: The Effectiveness of Muscle Energy and Massage Therapy for the Management of Symptoms Related to Chronic Cervical Dystonia: PDF
2nd Place Winner – Karla A. Lane
Case Study: Effect of Comprehensive Massage Therapy and Therapeutic Exercise in the Treatment of Chronic Myogenic Neck Pain: PDF
3rd Place Winner – Kathryn H. Blundell
Case Study: A combination of modalities constitutes ‘best practices’ protocol for treating Chronic Adhesive Capsulitis: PDF
Filed under: Announcements, MTABC clinical case report awards, Research news
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