Massage Research

Sheree Evans l Remedial Massage Specialists is a Mobile Massage Service, operating from the Gold Coast to Brisbane and surrounding suburbs. We strive on professionalism and are result driven to alleviate pain, aches, muscle stiffness, aid in rehabilitation, provide relief from tension, with Remedial Massage, Deep Tissue Massage, Pregnancy Massage, Sports Massage, Disability Massage & Relaxation Massage for stress and anxiety – all in the comfort of your own home. We are designed to give you one-on-one attention during your treatment.

Recent Articles


1. Wii Injuries
2. Exercise no danger for joints
3. Deep tissue

Wii Injuries
To say that Wii injuries are an epidemic would be an overstatement, but they are proliferating along with the popular video-game system. Interviews with orthopedists and sports medicine physicians revealed few serious injuries, but rather a phenomenon more closely resembling a spreading national ache: patients of all ages complaining of strains and swelling related to their use — and overuse — of the Wii.
Call it Wii Shoulder. Or Wii Knee. If there is an epidemic of anything, it probably falls under a broader label: Nintendinitis.
“Skateboarding, snowboarding, you name it,” said Dr. William N. Levine, the director of sports medicine at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center. “Take the newest fad, and there’s always a slew of specific orthopedic injuries associated with it.”
The difference now is that the surging sales of the Wii system mean that misery gets more company every day. Nintendo, which introduced the Wii in November 2006, sold more than 10 million of the game systems in the United States last year, including a record 2.1 million in December. The complementary Wii Fit exercise program has been nearly as popular, with more than 6.5 million sold since its introduction last May.

Consumers who avoided sedentary video-game systems have flocked to the Wii, which lures users off the couch with a handheld, wireless remote and a selection of familiar, free-swinging games like tennis, boxing and bowling. For some parents, and even grandparents, the games are a way to connect with children on their own turf. The fact that everyone gets a little exercise along the way is an added plus.
“It’s great in the concept that it gets people active and involved,” said Dr. Brian Halpern, a sports medicine physician at the Hospital for Special Surgery in Manhattan. “It’s not great in that you get lost in that and are overloading areas that you haven’t worked out in a long time, if ever.”
Dr. Halpern said he had treated two types of injuries: traumatic injuries like twisted knees and sprained ankles from playing the games in confined spaces, and repetitive stress problems from playing too long. A common problem is the realization by players that a full swing is not required; a flick of the wrist is often enough to return a serve or bowl a strike. As several doctors pointed out, that is the exact motion — concentrating the force of a swing in the muscles of the forearm — that can cause tennis elbow.
The Wii system was built with warnings about prolonged use, and electronic prompts interrupt players regularly to urge them to take a break.
Dr. John Sperling, a physician at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., called the aches and pains a sign of the times. “It’s a syndrome of injuries and people presenting with complaints that we couldn’t have imagined three years ago,” he said.
Dr. Levine said the youngest patient he had treated was 12. Dr. Young, who overworked his core muscles using the Wii Fit, is 32. Dr. Sperling’s patients have included a 22-year-old whose arm swelled to twice its size after a marathon Wii session, and a man in his 60s.
“I was asking him what happened,” Dr. Sperling said of the older patient, “and he said, ‘Well, we bought a Wii system for the grandkids. Next thing I know, my shoulder’s killing me.’ ”
Dr. Halpern, a former assistant team physician for the Mets, compared some Wii injuries to those sustained by professional athletes.
“It’s like if you have a pitcher who has gone to spring training and hasn’t worked hard in the off-season and starts throwing too much and kind of overloads his shoulder or elbow,” he said.
And just as that pitcher might have to take several days off, a person experiencing pain from a session of Wii games should do the same. While “the rush of beating kids a fraction of your age in Wii Sports far outweighs the discomforts of getting older,” Ms. Kaigler said, moderation is just as important. That may be especially true for older players.
My shoulder recovered with time away from the Wii, not a problem in a household with three children who were all eager to play and who are apparently more durable than their father. The lasting image of Christmas at my family’s home was that of my 5-year-old daughter in a velvet dress, blond hair tucked behind one ear, raining punches on a hulking man with a goatee. She knocked him out, but quickly moved on to baseball and bowling and golf.
Dr. Halpern said the shorter attention spans of younger children were probably preventing them from developing overuse injuries, describing their exposure to a variety of Wii games as “cross-training without even thinking about it.” Sore-shouldered and gimpy-kneed adults could be victims of their better focus, but also of their innate competitiveness.
“It’s good to be a kid at heart,” said Dr. Susan Joy, the director of the Cleveland Clinic’s women’s sports health program. “But sometimes when you start a new exercise program, it’s good to remember that you’re not a kid.”

Exercise no danger for joints
Non-elite level activity does not increase risk of osteoarthritis There is no good evidence supporting a harmful effect of exercise on joints in the setting of normal joints and regular exercise, according to a review of studies published in this month’s issue of the Journal of Anatomy. Exercise is an extremely popular leisure-time activity in many countries throughout the Western world and has for many become part of the modern lifestyle. It is widely promoted in as being beneficial for weight control, disease management in cardiovascular disease and diabetes, and for improving psychological well-being amongst an array of other benefits. In contrast, however, the lay press and community perception is also that exercise is potentially deleterious to one’s joints, in particular those of the lower extremities. Researchers from Boston, USA, and Ainring, Germany, reviewed existing studies on the relationship between regular exercise and osteoarthritis (OA) and concluded that in the absence of existing joint injury there is no increased risk of OA from exercise. “We found that in elite athletes where there was more likelihood of obtaining sports injuries, there was an increased risk of OA in the damaged joints, but in most people vigorous, low-impact exercise is beneficial for both it’s physical and mental benefits,” said lead researcher David Hunter MD PhD, New England Baptist Hospital. “The largest modifiable risk factor for knee OA is body weight, such that each additional kilogram of body mass increases the compressive load over the knee by roughly 4kg”. One might surmise therefore that exercise to reduce body-weight, where necessary, could in fact reduce the risk of OA, rather than increase it. The knee is the joint most commonly affected by the symptoms of osteoarthritis. More than 10 million Americans suffer from knee osteoarthritis, the most common cause of disability in the United States and women are more commonly affected than men.

Deep tissue
In this article we will look at how deep tissue massage techniques can benefit the human body and why it is important to massage a little deeper for those that have medical conditions or serious tension from stress. This method is often shied away from as it can be little bit uncomfortable for some, it isn’t supposed to be painful, but if someone is afraid to speak up the massage therapist will not know when the pressure is too much for the patient. Although this technique can cause some discomfort, the three reasons below will show you why it is a good idea to give this method a try if you suffer from any tight muscles or medical conditions that can benefit from it.
1. Relieve Stiff Joints: Stiff joints can be very painful, a deep tissue massage is designed to realign the deep muscle layers and connecting tissues. This technique may cause discomfort at first, but the benefits cannot be matched and in as little as 24 hours, you will feel the pain dissipate. A deep tissue massage uses many of the traditional Swedish massage techniques with the added benefit of focusing more on troubled areas.
2. Reduce Inflammation: Inflammation is usually the cause for joint pain, and deep tissue massage techniques can help alleviate these symptoms by using slow, focused massage that will help increase blood flow and improve circulation. It is usually necessary to have this technique done over a period of many sessions, as it is impossible to cure a problem with one massage. One session will start to release the tight muscles and future massages will help to completely remove them. It may be necessary to do these massages as maintenance as well to insure that the areas remain healthy and tension free.
3. Improve Medical Conditions: Deep tissue massage can help reduce or eliminate symptoms from many medical conditions, including muscle spasms, fibromyalgia, carpal tunnel syndrome and osteoarthritis. When this massage technique is used as therapy and done on a regular basis, it can have lasting results.
This article discussed deep tissue massage techniques and how this method can improve many medical conditions. This technique can relieve stiff joints and reduce inflammation, and although it can be a bit uncomfortable, it is a great way to take massage therapy to another level and help our bodies heal themselves. Everyone suffers from stress, deep tissue massage can help melt this stress away and allow our bodies to work at their optimum level.