The Placebo Effect in Manual Therapy

Brian Fulton RMT has been a Massage Therapist since 1999. Trained and educated in Ontario, Canada, he has maintained a clinical practice with a distinctly holistic approach to healing and disease prevention. As a past Director of the Registered Massage Therapists' Association of Ontario, he has been actively involved in moving his profession forward on all levels. In addition to his private practice, Brian was a health columnist for a community magazine for over ten years, writing on a broad range of topics from nutrition, exercise, injury management and disease prevention. His current passion lies in educating health practitioners in becoming more aware of the innate healing mechanisms inside of their patients. His book, The Placebo Effect in Manual Therapy - Improving clinical outcomes in your practice, is a detailed work guiding health professionals in the important area of accessing their patients' natural healing systems by understanding subtleties in the practitioner-patient relationship.

Catherine Ryan is a Canadian trained Registered Massage Therapist with over 20 years of clinical and Massage Therapy (MT) educator experience. Embracing a firm commitment to life-long learning, her extensive postgraduate roster includes training in various approaches to myofascial therapy and scar management. Cathy is the Managing Editor and a course provider at TouchU.ca, an online portal for MT continuing education. Her online courses and hands-on workshops are accredited with various professional regulatory bodies and associations across Canada and with NCBTMB in the USA. As a regularly featured writer for Massage Therapy Canada and RMT Matters Canada magazines - she may be best recognized for her fascia enthusiasm and voracious interest in all things massage therapy. A proponent of professional regulation, over her career she has worked with Canadian MT regulatory organizations - previously as a subject matter expert for the College of Massage Therapists of Ontario and was recently elected as Chair of the Board of Directors of the College of Massage Therapists of British Columbia. As a clinician, educator and writer she upholds a strong interest in research translation and evidence informed practices and is committed to the delivery of safe, effective and ethical care. Where MT is concerned, Cathy is never at a loss for words and is driven by a passion for the profession - co-authoring a book seemed a logical next step in her professional explorations!

Diane Lee is an orthopaedic musculoskeletal physiotherapist (FCAMT) and designated as a Clinical Specialist in Women's Health by the Canadian Physiotherapy Association. She has long been interested in the biomechanics of the thorax and the impact of sub-optimal thoracic alignment, mobility and control in multiple conditions throughout the whole body. She has written several chapters on both the pelvis and the thorax as well as published two peer-reviewed articles (1993, 2015 JMMT) on her biomechanical model of the thorax. She self-published two books on the thorax (Manual Therapy for the Thorax 1994 and The Thorax - An Integrated Approach 2003), which are both no longer available and is excited to collaborate with Handspring Publishing on this new text. The intent is to describe a biopsychosocial approach that incorporates the novel, updated biomechanical model of the thorax to facilitate wise decisions for clinicians working with musculoskeletal, urogynecological and respiratory conditions. Diane lectures internationally on the thorax and other topics and provides online education through her company Learn with Diane Lee at www.learnwithdianelee.com.

Louise Tremblay's great interest has always been medicine. She studied acupuncture and has practised classical homeopathy for 20 years. Her interest in manual therapy started in 1996 with Bowen therapy. To understand the amazing results of Bowen, she studied osteopathy for six years. She also teaches Niromathe method with contagious enthusiasm. Her school AIMTC (International Academy of Contemporary Therapeutic Methods) is oriented in teaching modern manual therapies. Louise strongly believes that understanding human physiology is essential to the quality of the "moves" in any manual therapy. Studying physiology makes us realise that all manual therapists are in fact doing "the same", i.e. stimulating the central nervous system. Only techniques are different. However, to reach optimal efficiency with one technique, one must know the physiology behind it. Quality of move demands a quality of attitude from the therapists and a general quality of life.

Louise travels the world, teaching in Canada, France, Spain, Belgium, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, UK, USA, New-Zealand and Australia. Besides treating patients, teaching, researching, lecturing, writing and traveling, Louise also has passion for historical novels, for spicy cuisine inspired by many cultures, and especially for salmon fly fishing.

Nancy Keeney Smith is a Licensed Massage Therapist, Certified Manual Lymph Drainage Therapist, and a Florida and NCTMB Provider of Scar Management Workshops. Nancy's Working with Matured Scar Tissue workshop has been taught internationally to massage school students, LMT's, PT's and OT's. Nancy is a member of the Associate Research Team at the Florida School of Massage in Gainesville, Florida, founder and Director of The Happy Plus Foundation, 2nd Vice-President of the AMTA Florida Chapter, member of the American Burn Association, the National Lymphedema Association and the Phoenix Society for Burn Survivors. Her private practice in Gainesville, Florida includes treatment of burn survivors, clients battling cancer, mastectomy scar management, as well as others with traumatic scarring. Nancy consults with physical and occupational therapists on burn massage techniques and on developing a long term protocol for scar management after care programs.