Recently I have published a book on massage therapy training for seniors.  We have a huge wave of baby boomers that we seem unprepared to serve.  This is a critical population to address.  Unlike their parents, most of them know something about massage and many have experienced our work.  Baby boomers will want more services and more mobile services than have past seniors.

 Having a Master’s degree in psychology and being a senior myself, I come from an angle of understanding our seniors, the conditions they often endure, and the medications they take.  Medications can and do require changes to how we approach client work.   I also talk about working with senior facilities and families.  And working with seniors and end-of-life issues can be difficult for therapists.  We need to be prepared on many levels to give our best to them and ourselves.

I have also been approached by a California local school to help train their students several times a year.  I love the idea of getting the next generation of therapists ready to work with seniors.  There seems to be little focus on seniors in massage training schools and yet we baby boomers will be a major population for the next 20-30 years.  Why are we not grooming students on a more massive scale?  That is another reason I wrote my book and why this school wants me to do training.

Preparing the field for the future is what I had hoped to do as I eased into retirement, but that focus is finding me before that time frame.  I am open to the opportunities that present themselves, if they fit into my vision and my expertise.