Time for You
Therapies that give you a break from everyday stresses to leave you feeling relaxed and refreshed
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Time for You Therapies that give you a break from everyday stresses to leave you feeling relaxed and refreshed
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Complementary therapies within an medical practiceTime for You can offer many complementary therapies that might be helpful to the patient, and below there are a few suggestions about how reflexology might be beneficial. If you would like to discuss this further, please contact Rachel on 01948 710817 or timeforyou88@hotmail.com. What part can Reflexology play within a medical practice? Reflexology acts as a complement to all forms of standard medical treatment that may help a wide range of acute and chronic conditions. The therapy may be particularly useful for:
Using reflexology to support and enhance treatment can free doctors to allocate their own time more effectively. It also enables the practice to offer an extra service to patients. The fact that the therapy includes a strong ‘feel good factor’ can have a major effect on patient satisfaction and their appreciation of the level of care offered by your practice. There is also some evidence to suggest that using complementary therapies within a medical practice may help to reduce the drugs bill.
Which patients can benefit?
Practitioners’ experience has shown reflexology to be particularly helpful in the following areas:
As the therapy is extremely gentle and safe, it can be used to treat all ages. There are very few contra-indications, although certain conditions require special care and a close liaison with the medical practitioner.
What evidence is there to validate Reflexology?
In common with most complementary therapies, there has only been limited research aimed at validating reflexology. Many of the research projects in reflexology are very small studies. This is in part due to lack of evidence to allow the studies to be set up in the first place and in part due to the lack of funding opportunities.
There is also a general rule of thumb in scientific research on repetition and reproducibility, that to be firmly believed any one research project has to be repeated both by the originators and a separate group – and the same results obtained – before it will be accepted. As with much of CAM evidence this has not happened with reflexology research. It has to be noted that there are also negative studies regarding reflexology.
However, there is a suggestion that reflexology has an effect from studies of a reduction in stress, management of pain, sinus problems, multiple sclerosis, PMS and constipation. If you would like a leaflet giving the references for this research, please e-mail us on timeforyou88@hotmail.com.
History and rationale of Reflexology
The system of working on the feet to affect health is an ancient form of therapy, appearing in diverse cultures across the globe and throughout history. Earliest traces have been found around 5,000 years ago in India, China, Japan and Egypt.
The practice apparently spread to Europe during the Dark Ages, and forms of ‘pressure point therapy’ or ‘zone therapy’ were well known in the Middle Ages and were used by all strata of society.
Present day reflexology has its roots in medical and neurological studies carried out in the 1890s in the UK and Germany as a result of which the tradition of pressure point therapy converged with the new discoveries such as Head’s Zones and the effects of massage on the sympathetic nervous system.
Further support was provided by an American ear, nose and throat specialist, Dr William Fitzgerald, who documented the analgesic and anaesthetising effects of working on points on the hands and feet. In the 1930s, work on the feet became distinguished from zone therapy in general to become reflexology as we know it today.
There is as yet no unified theory as to how reflexology works. However, its effects are likely to involve some or all of the following processes:
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