Massage Therapy Foundation Holds First Research Conference

By Editorial Staff

Approximately 170 people attended the Massage Therapy Foundation's first research conference, "Highlighting Massage Therapy in CAM Research," in Albuquerque, N.M. from Sept. 22 through Sept.

27 at the Albuquerque Convention Center and the Hotel Albuquerque at Old Town. The conference was the first of its kind and was supported by corporate donations as well as a grant (No. 1R13 AT002193-01A1) from the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine.

Keynote speakers included Trish Dryden, M.Ed., RMT, (Nurturing a Culture of Professionalism and Inquiry: Our Journey Towards Research Literacy and Capacity) the coordinator of the Centre for Applied Research at Centennial College in Toronto; Edzard Ernst, MD, PhD, FRCP, (Evidence-Based Massage Therapy) the founder and editor-in-chief of two medical journals (Focus on Alternative and Complementary Therapies and Perfusion); Richard Nahim, PhD, MPH, (Researching Massage Therapy: The NCCAM Perspective) NCCAM's Senior Advisor for Scientific Coordination and Outreach; and James L. Oschman, PhD, (Alternative Methods for Researching Complementary and Alternative Integrative Medicine) the author of more than 30 research papers and two books. The conference also featured 35 workshops, panel discussions and research presentations, along with 23 poster presentations.

The workshops and panel discussions gave attendees an opportunity to see the practice of massage along with the research aspects of the profession. The workshops included such topics as, "The Challenges and Rewards of Conducting Research Projects in the Massage School Environment," led by Elaine Calenda, Academic Dean of the Boulder College of Massage Therapy; "Understanding Qualitative Research" by Martha Brown Menard, PhD, CMT; "Writing for Publication: Understanding the World of Academic Books and Peer Reviewed Journals" by Leon Chaitow, ND, DO; and "Massage Therapy: An Examination of the Contextual Model" led by Christopher Moyer, MA.

"The Foundation is very pleased with the favorable responses from attendees at the Highlighting conference. There were over 170 people in attendance; the presentations were exciting and the opportunities to have the research and practitioner communities talking and working together were plentiful," said Foundation president John Balletto. "Planning and executing a conference like this takes enormous financial and volunteer resources. The Foundation Board of Trustees will carefully evaluate the possibility of repeating this landmark event for the profession."