Car­ol Quash

Man­u­al ther­a­py mas­sages are ben­e­fi­cial to ath­letes, as they are de­signed to help them man­age pain, en­hance their ath­let­ic per­for­mance and speed up re­cov­ery from in­juries. But it can be phys­i­cal­ly tax­ing on the ther­a­pists them­selves.

So af­ter years of us­ing the hands-on modal­i­ty that tar­gets neu­ro­mus­cu­loskele­tal is­sues us­ing deep tis­sue work, joint mo­bil­i­sa­tion, and move­ment-based ma­nip­u­la­tion, sports and re­me­di­al mas­sage ther­a­pist Vanes­sa Ab­erdeen has in­vest­ed in a ma­chine that does all the heavy lift­ing, while she still main­tains her hands-on ther­a­peu­tic pro­ce­dure.

On the Elec­trons Plus web­site, she is list­ed as the on­ly prac­ti­tion­er in Trinidad and To­ba­go who us­es the ma­chine that helps to recharge the sys­tems of the body from a mi­cro­cel­lu­lar lev­el via the ab­sorp­tion of elec­trons in­to the cells, bring­ing about a cel­lu­lar en­er­getic ex­change.

“So hands-on ther­a­py is very tax­ing on the body, es­pe­cial­ly over time, and I was look­ing for a tool that could en­hance my out­comes while tak­ing the load off my body.”

The ma­chine comes with a con­trol con­sole to reg­u­late the fre­quen­cy, in­ten­si­ty and pulse of the elec­tro­mag­net­ic field; an elec­tri­fied plate or pad that is placed un­der­neath the client’s body; and spe­cial ap­pli­ca­tors to chan­nel the en­er­gy. How­ev­er, prac­ti­tion­ers can skip the ap­pli­ca­tors and chan­nel the en­er­gy di­rect­ly through their hands and fin­ger­tips.

Ab­erdeen told Guardian Me­dia that while she was train­ing for the Mas­ters Ath­let­ics in 2023, a friend men­tioned the ma­chine and she vis­it­ed the web­site. She said she has nev­er been good with us­ing tools on clients, al­ways pre­fer­ring the hands-on ap­proach.

“So when I saw that this was a man­u­al tool, but it re­lies on my hands be­ing in con­tact with my clients, it was a no-brain­er for me. And the fact that it al­so speeds up the heal­ing process in so many ways and on so many lev­els, while al­so en­abling the ther­a­pist to heal every time they use it, is a win-win. Every time I use the ma­chine, I al­so recharge my cel­lu­lar sys­tem.”

Ab­erdeen ex­plained that the ma­chine us­es pulsed elec­tro­mag­net­ic field ther­a­py (PEMF)—a non-in­va­sive treat­ment us­ing a de­vice to emit low-fre­quen­cy mag­net­ic fields that al­low mi­crocur­rents to pass through tis­sue, and help to boost cir­cu­la­tion, re­duce in­flam­ma­tion and speed up heal­ing.

“I feel the en­er­gy through my hands as well, and it takes a lit­tle while get­ting used to that feel­ing be­cause as you work on the body and you en­counter dif­fer­ent block­ages with­in your sys­tem, whether it’s neu­ro­log­i­cal, fas­cial or some­thing else, the in­ten­si­ty of the feel­ing can bounce back in­to your hands.”

She said one of the things she re­al­ly likes about it is that it helps to reg­u­late the ner­vous sys­tem, and it can bring about a deep so­mat­ic ease.

“So it re­al­ly helps to recharge the ner­vous sys­tem so that the oth­er sys­tems of the body can per­form more ef­fi­cient­ly.”

When Ab­erdeen sees a client for the first time, she starts with a very low in­ten­si­ty and a mod­er­ate fre­quen­cy.

“So the fre­quen­cy would be the speed at which the waves are hit­ting the sys­tem, and the in­ten­si­ty would be the strength in that wave. At the be­gin­ning of their first ses­sion, I ori­ent the client to the ma­chine by al­low­ing them to feel the cur­rent pass­ing from my hand to theirs.”

Then, based on the client’s needs, the in­ten­si­ty and fre­quen­cy is ad­just­ed. And al­though there are not usu­al­ly any con­traindi­ca­tions, she is care­ful to fol­low spe­cif­ic safe­ty pro­to­cols.

“We do take pre­cau­tions around peo­ple wear­ing any type of de­vice that has to be cal­i­brat­ed; so hear­ing aids, deep brain stim­u­la­tion tun­ing, which is used in Parkin­son’s pa­tients, pace­mak­ers.”

Ab­erdeen is a mem­ber of the Elec­trons Plus on­line com­mu­ni­ty through which she com­mu­ni­cates with oth­er prac­ti­tion­ers on a reg­u­lar ba­sis—sports mas­sage ther­a­pists, chi­ro­prac­tors and doc­tors.

“And we ex­change in­for­ma­tion on the dif­fer­ent ail­ments that we ei­ther want to use it with or that we have used it with. And so we’re con­stant­ly com­par­ing notes on how it works for each spe­cif­ic ail­ment. Every time we use it on some­thing new, it’s like a whole new dis­cov­ery in how the body would re­spond to it.”

In some cas­es, she has seen in­stant re­sults at the end of the ses­sion.

“One of the ways you can tell what the client is feel­ing as well is that there’s usu­al­ly a def­i­nite change in their fa­cial ex­pres­sion and their skin tone af­ter the ses­sions.”

Ab­erdeen got her ther­a­pist cer­ti­fi­ca­tion from the North Lon­don School of Sports Mas­sage, and has been a prac­ti­tion­er for over three decades. In 2021, com­ing right off the back of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, she es­tab­lished Anato­my Tech, a com­pa­ny ded­i­cat­ed to man­ag­ing pain caused by chron­ic stress, phys­i­cal in­jury, ill­ness­es and con­gen­i­tal in­juries.

“I do all the phys­i­cal work and I do have a small team, in­clud­ing my as­sis­tant,” who han­dles the ad­min­is­tra­tive side of things. Now that she has seen what the Elec­trons Plus can do, she has plans to ex­tend its use in­to a dif­fer­ent form of ther­a­py. In ear­ly Ju­ly, she in­tends to in­tro­duce her “mag­ic ma­chine” as an ad­junct to beau­ty ther­a­py on the sis­ter isle.

“I want to tar­get To­ba­go’s beau­ty com­mu­ni­ty by do­ing pop-ups, at which a se­lect num­ber of peo­ple will re­ceive an Elec­trons Plus treat­ment with, say, a fa­cial treat­ment, at a much re­duced cost. Ba­si­cal­ly, mak­ing it ac­ces­si­ble to peo­ple in the beau­ty in­dus­try.”