trashystuff2-blog

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Uggh...today felt like the most miserable and long day ever. I felt so exhausted and just wanted to come home, workout, and get some endorphins/happiness flowing through my veins....good news is; the work-day ended, I came home and got a great workout in, and now I feel world's better!

Gotta get the anxiety and negativity out, and working out does the trick for me!! Had a great workout and now I feel relieved almost!! Just gonna relax with the man for the rest of the night, and he's bringing me some pork tacos for dinner! :) hope everyone else's Monday went well and fast!

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Acupressure for Dementia: Acupressure Found to Calm Dementia Patients

A study conducted by researchers in Taiwan has found that acupressure can be used to calm the agitation of dementia patients. This is good news because the agitation experienced by dementia patients makes it difficult for caretakers to handle them. It not only endangers the patient, but, it makes the patient a danger to others. Such agitation and aggressiveness can necessitate moving the patient from the familiar surroundings of home and family to a nursing care facility earlier in the progression of the disease. Read more about acupressure for dementia. Find more.

In the study, a group of nursing home patients with dementia were given acupressure treatments twice a day, 5 days a week for a month. In the following 4 weeks, researchers tried talking to the subjects for 15 minutes a day in an attempt to calm them. The researchers found that the acupressure sessions were more effective in calming the patients than the talk sessions. Patients were found to be less aggressive both physically and verbally. The researchers used a scale of behaviors to measure the physical and verbal abuse. Non-verbal agitation consists of tearing things, disrobing, stealing and wandering. Verbal attacks include repeated questioning and shouting. The pretreatment scores of the patients on the scale used by the researchers averaged 79 points. Following acupressure treatments the average score fell below 60.

Acupressure utilizes the stimulation of pressure points on the body. Like acupuncture it focuses on specific points to achieve specific results. In this treatment five key pressure points were stimulated for two minutes. The acupressure was preceded by a warm-up of holding and rubbing the patient’s hands, and rubbing and pressing the palms and fingers. After the trial period ended the levels of agitation began to rise again. This indicates that the treatment may need to be given on a continuous basis. It may be useful to train caretakers in this special acupressure procedure. Seventy percent of the patients in this study were classified as having severe behavior disturbances. The patients were found to be less aggressive after the acupressure treatments and the results seemed to be more immediate than other calming methods.

The conclusion of this study from the Institute of Clinical Nursing at Yang-Ming University is that Acupressure is an efficacious and non-intrusive therapy for calming agitated dementia patients.

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Lamina Groove – area next to the spine for massage

You know that area that is right next to the spin? The groove that runs parallel with the spine, going from the tailbone all the way up to the neck bone? This is where the Lamina groove is and wow is it powerful! The “smooth groove” is the oldest intrinsic part of our bodies. The deepest muscles, the multifidus, Rotortories, inter-costalis, if one can relax these deep muscles, one can greatly improve the health of the spine, joints, joint capsules, spinus processes, vertebraes etc.

Through running down the spine toward the sacrume with deep strokes using the forearm or elbow once facilitates the joints of the spine to close back on to each other greatly improving forward head posture and dowagers hump, hence reducing neck pain, shoulder pain and kyphotic conditions.

This technique was popularized my Dr Ida Rolf back in the 70′s and 80′s and is a remarkable technique to restore normal curvature of the spine, greatly improving scoliosis, kyphosis and lordosis of the spine.

The easiest way to perform the Smooth Groove is to have your client seated on a sturdy stool/chair and have them slowly bend forward with the head leading by tucking and slowly moving down one vertebrae at a time, give the client a queue and ask them to let their arms become heavy and hang by their sides almost weighing the torso down slowly. Sink your elbows/forearms into the fascia at the tops of the shoulders hooking the top of the traps and dragging downward slowly as the client slowly bends, the Slower the deeper the technique.

One can use a little lotion to reduce friction but this technique is designed to reach the fourth layered muscles and to cause a release of the Multifidus, Rotortories and Intertransverseri, so deeper the better Once down at the lower back down by the sacrum one can switch to using soft fists on either side of the spine and have the client gently side bend to the and twist to put a activating force through the lumbar’s. This technique is great for restoring function and overall body mechanics.