Diploma in sports massage therapy

What are the legal implications when working with children and vulnerable adults

Children and vulnerable adults present a challenge in terms of obtaining consent for therapy. Legally, these groups are considered incapable of providing informed consent. In such a case therefore, vulnerable adults should appoint someone with the power of attorney to provide consent on their behalf. For those who are delving into the area of psychology dissertation help, navigating through the intricacies of consent within these demographics is said to be a crucial aspect to consider.

Legally, parents have parental responsibility over children below the statutory age of 16 years and they should provide consent on behalf of children before receiving therapy. Failure to adhere to these practices may lead to legal proceedings of negligence against the practitioner and can attract compensations and heavy fines, if convicted.

Describe informed consent. What can you do to gain this from the client

Informed consent is voluntary accepting and affirming by the client to be subjected to the treatment offered by the practitioner. In sports massage, the client has to be given full information of the therapy and allowed to either agree or disagree with the treatment. The elements of informed consent are voluntary, informed and capacity. These elements are also measured in law in case of court litigation.

Voluntary consent is where the patient makes the decision to either consent or not to consent to the treatment without any form of coercion being subjected to the patient. Informed, as an element of consent holds that the client should be given all the information about the particular treatment plan the physician recommend to the client. The information includes the treatment process, the duties and responsibilities of both the client and physician in the treatment, and the benefits of the treatment and the potential side effects of the treatment. All this information is crucial in enabling the patient to make the decision to either consent or not to consent to the treatment.

The third element of consent is the capacity in which the client should be capable to give consent to the treatment. Legally, capacity is examined in respect to age and mental status of the client. For instance, people under the age of 16 years, who are defined by law as children, may be informed, and voluntarily give consent for treatment but legally, they lack the capacity to give consent to the treatment. To obtain informed consent, I will endeavour, as a therapist to explain the therapy to the client including information on the benefits and shortfalls of therapy. The client will then decide to allow the therapy to be conducted. In such an instance, I may use an informed consent form to obtain the client's signature affirming their willingness to voluntarily participate in therapy.

What are the potential consequences of client non compliance

Client Noncompliance has some consequences. First, due to their noncompliance, the client will not take part or be discontinued from the therapy and thus miss out the benefits associated with the therapy.

Secondly, the refusal of the client to follow the procedures and regulations of therapy makes the therapy ineffective and might expose the client to more serious health complications. Noncompliance may also cost the health facility which might be under legal scrutiny for cases of negligence. This may be associated with legal costs and should the facility be responsible for the non-compliance, other impacts such as closure of facility and legal proceedings against therapists might be instituted.

What is a sports massage therapist scope of practice taking into account contraindications, contra-Actions and referral procedures

Sports massage therapist has a broad spectrum of practice. They are responsible for ensuring mental and physical health of their clients. The therapist provides massage to the clients to relieve the muscle pain and relax the bodies of their clients. Their assessment of the clients also aims at identifying accompanying medical conditions of the clients that may affect their participation in sports and as a result, they also advice on training and warm up schedules of the clients. This is also done to clients referred to them from sports centres and academies.

List professional standards of one relevant sports massage professional body

Sports therapy organization is a body of sports massage established in 1999. It offers:

training of members

creating opportunities for members

What are the professional practice and standard regulations

Professional standards in sports massage collectively point towards the necessity of informed consent in treatment. These include client focus, cooperation with other practitioners, honesty and integrity. Others include professional competence and data protection. These standards are developed and monitored by professional bodies governing the health practitioners. These bodies also ensure members are insured and review membership and licensing of health practitioners and monitor their professional conduct.

On the other hand, regulations are developed by regulatory bodies. Regulatory bodies are tasked with developing the regulation of the healthcare practice by defining the legal measures to protect the clients against unlawful health practices offered by practitioners. These regulations ensure among others, child and adult protection, duty to care, protecting clients and safeguarding children and vulnerable adults against unlawful health practices thus limits the risk of harm to general public. Regulatory bodies also set qualifications and maintain standards as well as assert legislations and legal requirements of health practice.

List your sources used for this assignment

Jurch S (Undated): Pulling Back the Curtain: A Look at Sports Massage Therapy,

03rd November 2019

Queensland health (2017): Guide to Informed Decision-making in Health Care, 2nd edition. State of Queensland.

Shaha K, Patra A and Das S. 2013. The Importance of Informed Consent in Medicine, Sch. J. App. Med. Sci., 1(5):455-463

Sports therapy organization (undated)

November 2019

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