CAMTC Eliminates Exam Options

At its meeting on February 15, 2012, the California Massage Therapy Council (CAMTC) voted to eliminate the National Exam for State Licensing (NESL), offered by the National Certification Board for Therapeutic Massage and Bodywork, and  the Massage and Bodywork Licensing Exam (MBLEx) offered by the Federation of State Massage Therapy Boards (FSMTB) from the list of approved exams for the Portable G pathway to CAMTC certification. Applicants will only be able to apply for CAMTC certification by becoming certified by NCBTMB if applying by Portal G. There are still several other application pathways to CAMTC certification at either the CMP or CMT levels.

The reason for the change was based on the concern that “even the slightest potential of certifying a non-massage therapist was too great for the CAMTC to take”. The majority of the CAMTC board members voted to remove the NESL and MBLEx from the list of approved exams because the application process to sit for either of these exams does not include a minimum education component or verification of education an applicant represents having received on the exam application form. The decision made by the CAMTC board is no reflection on the actual quality of either exam or the security of the testing environment. Both exams are given by the professional testing company Pearson Vue, the leading provider of secure computer-based testing.

The CAMTC board members are well intentioned, however, both ABMP representatives on the CAMTC board (Bob Benson and Jean Robinson) voted against the motion to eliminate the NESL and the MBLEx based on the fact that there has been no evidence, documented or anecdotal, that allowing these exams has compromised the CAMTC certification process. In fact, only a small number of applicants have used the exam only option to actually apply for CAMTC certification.

To be as fair as possible to applicants already having initiated plans to gain CAMTC certification via the “exam-only” route, CAMTC will phase out the NESL and MBLEx “exam only” pathway to certification:

1. Applicants must apply and qualify through the “exam-only” route by May 15, 2012. This means you must have applied for CAMTC certification AND passed the exam by this date.

2. Anyone who was specifically told by CAMTC’s Professional Standards Division that if they pass an exam they will be deemed qualified for certification, will get certified when they present a passing score.

Applicants for CAMTC certification whose schools have closed and therefore cannot provide CAMTC with original transcript documentation, will now have to apply for CAMTC certification using the “compelling evidence” protocol.

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Kansas Bill to License Massage Therapists Fails

House Bill 2564, which would have required massage therapists to become state licensed, failed to progress this year. Thank you to all members who made phone calls to legislators at our request. There will very likely be another attempt in the 2013 legislative session to re-introduce a bill. ABMP will continue to work with others to ensure the best possible outcome should a bill progress.

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The Imperfect Anorexic

Photo Credit: Zachary Zavislak

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It was 2 A.M. and I'd had "dinner" four hours earlier: a Greek salad, two slices of lemon meringue pie, a piece of carrot cake, and a brownie sundae. But an overwhelming sense of anxiety — over my career, my relationship, and even my dirty apartment — prevented me from just going to sleep, and I was hungry. I'd already thrown away all my "danger foods," like Ritz crackers and chocolate chips, and returning to the nearby 24-hour grocery store was out of the question: I couldn't face the clerks as I paid for cookies and fudge sauce for the second time that day. The only way out was a tactic I'd tried before: I reached for the brown sugar, olive oil, flour, and cocoa powder. After pouring them into a bowl and mixing with a fork, I started eating. As the grainy mixture slid down my throat, a familiar numbness set in. I went back for more.

My relationship with food had taken a wrong turn when I was 9, the summer my family moved to a new state. I knew no one. Faced with long, friendless days, I'd sneak into our pantry for a box of Golden Grahams, tiptoe away, and shovel down handful after handful alone in my bedroom. Over the years, to keep my weight under control from the frequent binges, I learned to fast for days at a time. I even experimented with ipecac syrup, a medicine used to induce vomiting, to make myself throw up in high school — a trick I learned after researching eating disorders for junior high book reports. But by the end of college, when I hadn't purged for a few years, I assumed I'd grown out of it.

So when my aberrant eating habits returned — I was 29, living and working in New York City — I just thought I was being healthy. I'd ended a bad relationship and started a macrobiotic diet to jump-start my new life. I became a gym rat, and within a few months I'd lost 30 pounds — but at 5'7" and 132 pounds, I was still in the "normal" BMI range. And I was happy, meeting men who treated me better than my ex ever did. Slowly, as I shopped for ever-smaller clothes and friends complimented my new look, I adopted other odd eating habits, doing endless calorie calculations, superstitiously refusing carbs three days before a date, and inhaling coffee and cigarettes to quell my chronic low-level hunger. To manage my cravings for baked goods, I resorted to an old high school strategy: chewing food and spitting it out instead of swallowing. It wasn't an eating disorder, I thought, just a reward — a way to get the sugar I craved for "free." I knew this wasn't normal, but in a city where people talk nonchalantly about getting colon cleanses, my behavior didn't feel that strange. Everyone around me commented on how "good" I was, with my salads and carrots. Only once did anyone question my habits — a friend who'd been hospitalized for bulimia and recognized my eating as troublesome. "What's up with your weird eating?" she asked bluntly. I blew off the question. And my main physical symptoms — dizzy spells, anemia — I blamed on stress.

When the company I was working for went belly-up, this precarious balance crumbled. During the day, I limited myself to small meals: a half-cup of nonfat yogurt with five almonds and four prunes for breakfast, a plain green salad with fat-free tuna salad for lunch. But after dark, about four times a week, I'd change into elastic-waist pajama pants and indulge in hours-long bouts of eating, inhaling candy bars and cookies dipped in Nutella, washing them down with maple syrup straight from the bottle. I fell into a trancelike state as I ate, and the sluggishness brought on from ingesting thousands of calories in one sitting kept my nerves off their usual high-wire. I tried purging a few times, but it destroyed the tranquility I felt after a binge, and eventually I stopped trying.

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FDA Approves LINX Reflux Management System to Treat GERD

The Food and Drug Administration today approved the LINX Reflux Management System for people diagnosed with GERD who continue to have chronic symptoms, despite the use of maximum medical therapy for the treatment of reflux.

"The LINX Reflux Management System is a sterile, single-use, surgically placed device used to treat the symptoms associated with GERD," said Christy Foreman, director of the Office of Device Evaluation in FDA's Center for Devices and Radiological Health. "LINX offers an option to patients and their health care providers and is an alternative to current surgical procedures."

The LINX system is composed of a series of titanium beads, each with a magnetic core, connected together with independent titanium wires to form a ring shape. It is implanted at the lower esophageal sphincter (LES), a circular band of muscle that closes the last few centimeters of the esophagus and prevents the backward flow of stomach contents.

The force of the magnetic beads is designed to provide additional strength to keep a weak LES closed. Upon swallowing, the magnetic force between the beads is overcome by the higher pressures of swallowing forces, and the device expands to accommodate a normal swallow of food or liquid. Once the food passes though the LES, the device returns to its resting state.

The company conducted a feasibility study of 44 patients at four centers with a five-year follow-up plan. In addition, the company conducted a pivotal study of 100 patients at 14 centers with a five-year follow-up plan. Patients enrolled had GERD and chronic GERD symptoms, despite medical therapy. It is reported that the results from both the feasibility and pivotal trials indicate that the benefits obtained with the LINX Reflux Management System outweigh its risks.

There are reported side effects, with the most common adverse effects included difficulty swallowing, pain when swallowing food, chest pain, vomiting, and nausea.

Patients with LINX will no longer be able to undergo Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) procedures. The magnetic beads interfere with the machine and can cause the device to be damaged and the patient to be injured.

Related Resources:

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Alternative Medicine May Help Ease Chronic Sinusitis

WEDNESDAY, March 21 (HealthDay News) -- When used in tandem with standard Western treatments, alternative therapies such as acupuncture, acupressure and dietary changes may spell significant relief for patients battling chronic sinusitis, a new pilot study suggests.

The authors say that their study is the first to explore the potential of combining Western medicine with Eastern therapies among these patients, who experience swollen and inflamed sinuses, facial pain, headaches and impaired breathing.

"Our study was small, looking at a handful of patients who were not benefiting that well from standard treatment," acknowledged study author Dr. Jeffrey Suh, an assistant professor of rhinology and skull base surgery in the department of head and neck surgery at the University of California, Los Angeles.

"And my take on alternative treatments is that Western medicine is effective for the majority of patients," he added. "But for those who don't get complete relief, adding in a more holistic Eastern approach that includes exercise, improved sleep, a better diet, and acupuncture and self-administered acupressure seems to provide an alternative that can have great benefit."

Suh and his colleagues report their findings in the March issue of the Archives of Otolaryngology.

The authors point out that chronic rhinosinusitis is a very prevalent condition in the United States, with nearly 30 million American adults diagnosed with the disease in 2010 alone, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The acute version of the disease is typically due to infection, experts say. However, the chronic form (namely, cases enduring past 12 weeks) is thought to stem from a variety of environmental and anatomical causes (such as the presence of polyps or a deviated nasal septum), thereby complicating treatment efforts.

Such efforts usually include the use of nasal corticosteroid sprays and nasal irrigation, while in some instances surgical intervention is required. Despite such efforts, some patients remain debilitated.

Suh and his team focused on 11 such individuals (eight men and three women), between the ages of 32 and 70. Many had struggled with the condition for years. None had had any kind of surgery in the three months before the study started. Similarly, no one had undergone acupuncture or acupressure intervention in the two months beforehand.

During the study, all previous treatments were continued. However, patients were offered eight weekly 20-minute sessions of therapeutic acupuncture and acupressure massage, performed by licensed therapists. Counseling was also offered to teach patients how to self-administer acupressure at home.

A dietary analysis was also conducted, and patients were given nutritional guidance that tracked traditional Chinese approaches towards food consumption. Stress management was also discussed, as were the benefits of regular exercise.

The result: The team found that when applied alongside modern medicine, the use of such so-called "staples of Eastern medicine" appeared to be both safe and effective.

After two months, all the patients showed a statistically significant gain in terms of quality of life, with a drop in feelings of frustration and restlessness and a boost in their ability to concentrate.

What's more, patients were found to have less of a problem with runny noses, reduced sneezing and a subsequent reduced need to blow their noses. Facial pain and pressure also appeared to drop off somewhat.

"These were the worst of the worst patients," Suh stressed. "And during treatment they got better. Now were they completely better? No. Only some of their symptoms improved. And those who did not keep up the lifestyle modifications like self-administered acupressure returned to their previous state after the study. But those who kept it up continued to see a benefit. So this offers some hope, and leads us to consider the next question, which is what might be possible with Eastern therapy alone?"

That said, Dr. Jordan Josephson, a sinus and allergy specialist with Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, cautioned that chronic sinusitis is a "very complex problem" for which there is no simple solution.

"Augmenting traditional medicine with Eastern therapies is a very wise thing to do for sinus sufferers," he said. "In my practice, I certainly do this. Because it's not a question of antihistamines or acupuncture."

"And the reason for that is that we're not taking about a cure," Josephson said. "This is not a cold or a sniffle. If you have chronic sinusitis, it's chronic, like diabetes. So, the best thing to do is to treat patients with a combination of diet, antibiotics, antifungals, nasal sprays, allergy treatment, acupuncture, lifestyle changes, irrigation with saline and irrigation with medicines. You need a comprehensive plan for each individual patient that will give them the best chance at control."

More information

For more on chronic sinusitis, visit the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

Could Soy Help Lower Your Blood Pressure?

SUNDAY, March 25 (HealthDay News) -- Isoflavones -- a compound found in foods such as soy milk, green tea, tofu and peanuts -- may help lower blood pressure in young adults, new research suggests.

The researchers also found that isoflavones may be of particular benefit for black American adults, nearly 42 percent of whom are estimated to have high blood pressure, also known as hypertension.

One expert not connected to the study said there is reason to believe that isoflavones could help the heart.

Isoflavones "dilate the vessels by increasing the release of nitric oxide," explained Dr. Suzanne Steinbaum, director of women and heart disease at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. She said the new study, "brings to light a compelling dietary recommendation that can help control hypertension in younger patients."

In the new study, investigators examined data from more than 5,000 participants in a major study funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

The analysis revealed that those who consumed the highest amounts of isoflavones per day (more than 2.5 milligrams

Passive smoking: An active threat to children

Further evidence that, even if you can’t quit smoking, you should try your damnedest not to smoke around your kids: A new study has found that children exposed to second-hand smoke had almost double the risk of developing chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) as adults, compared to those who were not exposed.