Chair massage programs for Houston senior living communities

You already know what a good touch-based activity does for your residents: the ones who don’t come to bingo come to this, the afternoon is calmer, and families hear about it at the next visit. What’s hard is finding a therapist who is comfortable with a resident who has dementia, shows up on the same day every week without being chased, and doesn’t need you to manage them. That’s the program.

How a visit runs

A therapist arrives at the same time each week or every other week, sets up a massage chair in your activity room or a quiet corner of the common area, and sees residents in ten- to fifteen-minute sessions, seated, fully clothed, no oils. Residents who can’t transfer to the chair are seen in their own wheelchair or a dining chair. We work from a list you keep or the therapist keeps, and we bring the sign-up sheet, the sanitizer and the face-cradle covers. Nobody on your staff has to do anything but say hello.

Residents and staff

Most communities start with a two-hour resident visit. Many add a staff hour at shift change, which is the cheapest retention tool an executive director will ever approve: your CNAs get ten minutes in the chair, and it’s on the schedule every week. The staff hour can be billed to the community or offered to staff at their own cost; both are common.

How families pay for a resident’s sessions

Some communities fund the program from the activities budget. Others offer it as an add-on that families pay for directly, the way they’d pay for a salon visit. We handle either: the community pays one monthly invoice, or families set up a resident’s sessions online and the therapist checks the list. Many communities do both, with the budget covering a group session and families adding private time.

Dementia-informed, not just dementia-tolerant

Morgan Sutherland, who runs the program and vets every therapist, is a Massachusetts-licensed massage therapist with 25 years of orthopedic and medical practice and a Certified Dementia Practitioner. Therapists in this program are trained on the things that make a session go well in memory care: approaching from the front, asking before touching, keeping the session short and the same every time, reading a resident who can’t say the pressure is wrong, and stopping when a resident wants to stop, even if the list says five more minutes. Residents who resist care from staff often accept it in the chair, and that carries into the rest of the day.

Communities we serve

Morgan Massage, the Massachusetts company this program grew out of, has provided recurring chair massage to fourteen assisted living, memory care and independent living communities in Greater Boston, some for years: Cabot Park Village, Adelaide of Newton Centre, Evans Park, Waltham Crossing, Shrewsbury Crossing, Forge Hill and Clapboardtree (Benchmark Senior Living); Sunrise of Newton, Sunrise of Wayland and Sunrise of Norwood (Sunrise Senior Living); The Residence at Natick South and The Residence at Valley Farm (LCB Senior Living); Brookhaven at Lexington; and Whitney Place Assisted Living at Natick (Salmon Health and Retirement). References from activity directors are available on the intro call.

Pricing

A one-time visit is $140 per therapist-hour with a two-hour minimum. A standing weekly or every-other-week program is $125 per therapist-hour, so a two-hour weekly resident visit is $250 a week, and a staff hour added to it is $125. Travel anywhere in the Houston area is included; there’s no travel fee. Fill in the form and the rate sheet comes back by email automatically.

Bring it to your executive director

Activity directors rarely sign the check. A one-page program summary written for your executive director, with the pricing, the schedule and the dementia-care approach on one sheet, is available by email while the download is being finished.

Schedule a 15-minute intro call

The intro-call calendar and the quote form are going live shortly. Until then, email hello@morganmassagehouston.com with your community, your name and role, the number of residents, the care levels you serve, and a preferred visit day, and you’ll have the rate sheet and two or three call times back the same business day.