Source: Massage Magazine January/February 2001
Physician Harry Simmons, Ph.D., M.D., believes in the efficacy of massage. So much so, he put himself through massage school in order to better care for his patients.
"I'm a scientist, a laboratory-based chemist and a physician," said Simmons, who is the medical director of New Hope: A Center for Complementary and Integrative Medicine in Cleveland, Ohio. "But working here, I thought it would be useful to have the one complementary therapy that had the best, most solid physiological basis. That's massage."
Simmons said that the use of massage can be justified to a practitioner of Western medicine on a scientific basis.
"[Massage] improves circulation, relaxation, autonomic sympathetic nervous system response," Simmons said. "You will find lots of allopaths who will say the don't believe in alternative medicine -- then you'll ask them if their patients should receive massage and they'll say, 'Oh yes, absolutely,' because massage has very strong physiological correlates."
Simmons chose training at the Cleveland School of Massage, a 100-hour school in Twinsburg, Ohio, that graduates Ethical Massage Practitioners (those who practice relaxation massage rather than the more stringently state-regulated medical massage).
Simmons said he got exactly what he needed from the school's curriculum: training in Swedish massage, reflexology and polarity. The sessions he offers last from 30 to 60 minutes. Although he works in a health-care clinic, Simmons does not give medical massages; he even tells patients that he's giving the massage purely for relaxation. He also uses massage as an assessment tool.
"Massage is something that I can now do to make someone feel better immediately, which is very gratifying," Simmons said. "I'll have a patient, take the vitals and history and then I may give them a massage. I see a lot more -- mobility, skin problems, circulation, overall wellness, nutritional well being, distribution of adipose tissue -- hat I wouldn't have gotten with a normal allopathic examination. And then I can compare my findings week after week."
Simmons explained that the vision for New Hope is to establish a place where each client/patient can achieve improved wellness with an individualized regimen of complementary therapies in conjunction with the care they receive from their primary care physician. Executive Director Ronald Rooy opened the center in 1997. After struggling for years with the debilitating symptoms of HIV, Rooy had turned to nutritional and energy therapies when he had lost all hope. After several months, his mental outlook improved, he felt physically better, and his T-cell count increased. Rooy also saw results in a friend who was following a similar complementary regimen.
The center's original mission was to treat HIV/AIDS, cancer and diseases of the elderly with therapies that would support the immune system. But the center now counts among its 200-plus patients people with fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, obesity and rheumatoid arthritis.
Besides massage, techniques used at New Hope include Reiki, polarity, reflexology, aromatherapy, guided imagery, chiropractic, nutrition, podiatry and acupuncture. In addition to Simmons, six massage therapists work there on a rotating basis.
Mary Pozniak, 66, lost an adult son a few months ago and continues to live with sometimes debilitating grief. She receives grief counseling, and massage from Simmons, at New Hope. "I figured it out a couple of weeks ago when Harry (Simmons) was working on me. When I get a massage I feel like my inner child is getting massaged. It helps me relax. You are uptight when you are grieving and after a massage I feel better all the way around."
Elaine King, 52, has received weekly massages from Simmons for over a year. She said massage helps her move more freely, despite chronic arthritis. "Yesterday I was crooked and bent," King says. "I come here today and I can stand straight."
Simmons says his position at New Hope is the best job he's ever had. "Massage enhances the medical examination, it is an extraordinarily useful skill, it extends my horizons to care for someone with one foot strongly in the allopathic world and one foot strongly in the alternative. I can provide a level of integrative care that otherwise I could not."
-- Charlotte M. Versagi, L.M.T., N.C.T.M.B.
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