Save Your Hands!: The Complete Guide to Injury Prevention and Ergonomics for Manual Therapists

The physically demanding work manual therapists do puts them at risk for musculoskeletal injury. But injury is not inevitable. Save Your Hands! 2nd Edition gives manual therapists the proven injury prevention and ergonomics strategies and tips they need to protect their health and safeguard their careers.In an accessible, richly-illustrated format, Save Your Hands! shows you how to: • Design your treatment space so you can work safely and efficiently • Find alternative techniques to protect vulnerable parts of your body • Use good body mechanics to work with less physical stress and greater comfort • Stay in shape with a physical conditioning program developed specifically for manual therapists • Recognize early symptoms and address them effectively before they lead to injury. Whether you are a student or an experienced practitioner in any of the hands-on health professions, this indispensable guide offers the practical advice you need to save not only your hands, but also your back, neck, shoulders and emotional well-being throughout a long, healthy career.**Important information for massage therapists, physical therapists, physical therapist assistants, occupational therapists, hand therapists, chiropractors, osteopaths, nurses and athletic trainers.**

Lauriann Greene, CEAS, wrote the acclaimed first edition of Save Your Hands! in 1995. Since then, she has published numerous articles, co-authored the first comprehensive statistical study on injury among massage therapists (with Richard Goggins), and performed injury prevention workshops for manual therapists across North America.Richard W. Goggins, CPE, LMP, is a senior-level ergonomist with the Washington Department of Labor & Industries. As a Certified Professional Ergonomist, he has spent the past 17 years working with business owners and employees to prevent injuries in a wide variety of industries. He is also a Licensed Massage Practitioner. Conditioning chapter and Foreword by Janet M. Peterson, PT, DPT, Member Board of Directors, APTA

Lauriann Greene, CEAS, has been a leading writer, speaker and researcher on injury prevention for manual therapists since 1995. She studied at Brown and Harvard Universities before graduating with honors from Seattle Massage School in 1993. Lauriann has pursued additional training to become a Certified Ergonomics Assessment Specialist (CEAS).

After sustaining a work-related injury early in her career, Lauriann did extensive research on occupational injury and developed the "Save Your Hands!" workshops for massage therapists. Between 1993 and 2003, she taught these injury prevention workshops to hundreds of students and professionals across North America. In 1995, she wrote Save Your Hands! Injury Prevention for Massage Therapists, the first book ever published on this subject.

Since that time, Lauriann has written numerous articles for major publications including Massage Therapy Journal, Massage Magazine (for whom she also wrote a self-care column), Massage & Bodywork, and Positive Health Magazine. In 2006, Lauriann joined forces with ergonomist and massage therapist Richard W. Goggins on a survey that produced the first reliable statistics on the prevalence of injury among massage therapists and bodyworkers, the results of which were published in Massage & Bodywork magazine. In addition to their collaboration on this book, Lauriann and Richard offer a range of injury prevention and ergonomics consulting, training and educational services to manual therapists and the businesses that employ them.

Richard W. Goggins, MS, CPE, LMP, is Board Certified as a Professional Ergonomist, and is a Licensed Massage Practitioner in Washington State. He has a bachelor's degree in biology from Columbia University, and a master's degree in Human Factors/Ergonomics from the University of Southern California (USC). During and following his time at USC, Rick worked for Hughes Space and Communications in El Segundo, Calif., helping them to establish their ergonomics program. From there, he moved north to work for the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries, where he is now the Senior Ergonomist with their Division of Occupational Safety and Health.

Through his work at Labor and Industries, Rick has helped employers in a variety of industries to prevent injuries among their employees. He is frequently asked to present talks and workshops on ergonomics at conferences around the country, and he has published a number of articles on the subject in publications including Professional Safety, Journal of Safety Research, and Massage and Bodywork. He is a past president of the Puget Sound Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, and continues to work with this group on a project to educate schoolchildren on computer ergonomics.

Rick first became interested in massage after receiving excellent treatment from several different massage therapists. He received his massage training at Alexandar's School of Natural Therapeutics in Tacoma, Wash., an experience that he still counts as one of his favorites. He is a professional member of the American Massage Therapy Association. Rick has combined his in-depth knowledge of injury prevention, ergonomics and manual treatment work in his collaboration with Lauriann Greene on the injury survey among massage therapists, and on this second edition of Save Your Hands!