Comparison of two teaching strategies in learning Therapeutic Touch
The goal is to demonstrate that modifications of professional massage therapy practices in the pain management caused by fibromyalgia are directly related to teaching performances. Two quantitative methods outline the educational process: A questionnaire reveals a statistically significant deficiency in the first palpatory step and during the palpation of a deep and precise element; An experimental study indicates that a teaching method following interactive imitation modeling is more efficient than behaviorist learning when it comes to mastering the palpatory skills. This result is significant (p < 1 %) in the acquisition of the five skills out of six, all of which attained independently of the genre (standards) and preliminary theoretical anatomic knowledge. Do massage performances – basic non-medical treatment in chronic pain care of fibromyalgia patients – benefit from this teaching method.