What Does Swedish Pharmacies Know About Massage?
In Sweden which until the last 7 years has predominantly been ruled by a social democratic party there have been a change. Under social democratic rule it have been a market economy but with restriction in some cases like a state owned and monopoly of pharmacy stores and liquor stores. I am going to discuss what have happened when the monopoly of pharmacies was discontinued in favour of a free market. All this took place a couple of years ago with the right wing alliance in government that won the latest election. One should remember that also the social democratic party has previously also privatized state owned companies. Enough of politics.
When there were only state owned pharmacies you could find them located strategically in different parts in in a city and even in rural areas. One disadvantage was then was the opening hours. Most had the same opening hours as the smaller shops. That meant no service on Sunday and only a few hours service on Saturday. But in major cities there were most of the time one pharmacy open 24 hours every day which was great for emergency. One should keep in mind that the monopoly at that time even made it impossible to buy none prescribed medication anywhere else than in the state owned pharmacy. So when the monopoly was abandoned different companies opened chains of pharmacies. I do not believe there is any totally independent pharmacy owned by one individual although there could be pharmacies were the main chain will allow some kind of franchise.
The good thing is now you find many more pharmacies in Sweden and sometimes even two from competing chains in the same shopping mall and the opening hours are usually more generous. In Sweden it is also now possible to buy none-prescription medication in the supermarket. So far so good. But at the same time pharmacies in Sweden will not open stores in rural areas or keep expensive and unusual medication in inventory. To make things even more questionable many pharmacies are now also selling shampoo and soap. Sometimes these items are taking more and more space in the pharmacies which often have become smaller than before (probably one effect of high competition) so it is rather amusing that under the free market pharmacies are selling objects that does not have anything to do with medicine.
What is sad is that some pharmacies websites are not only writing information regarding disorders that is treatable with medication but also tend to write about health in general. Unfortunately there are errors when they write about for instance massage. On one Swedish website I found that a pharmacy wrote that massage treated tension in tendons and ligaments. This is not correct due to the fact that tendons and ligaments does not have any physiological contractile properties in them. The major schools of massage therapy in Sweden does not even teach that massage should be applied on tendons or ligaments. But in orthopaedic medicine where the health care practitioner often is a physiotherapist manual frictions could be done in some cases on the tendons and ligaments. The same website also wrote that massage could be used for treatment of strains which also is incorrect because it is considered as a contra indication for massage therapy.
In conclusion I believe it is better that every professions within the health care community work with what they have been educated in and are specialized in. Just because one has studied human biology and medical subjects does not mean that one has any knowledge in every field of medicine or health science. Most textbook in physiology and different medical subjects does not contain anything on the topics of massage therapy or complementary medicine.
When there were only state owned pharmacies you could find them located strategically in different parts in in a city and even in rural areas. One disadvantage was then was the opening hours. Most had the same opening hours as the smaller shops. That meant no service on Sunday and only a few hours service on Saturday. But in major cities there were most of the time one pharmacy open 24 hours every day which was great for emergency. One should keep in mind that the monopoly at that time even made it impossible to buy none prescribed medication anywhere else than in the state owned pharmacy. So when the monopoly was abandoned different companies opened chains of pharmacies. I do not believe there is any totally independent pharmacy owned by one individual although there could be pharmacies were the main chain will allow some kind of franchise.
The good thing is now you find many more pharmacies in Sweden and sometimes even two from competing chains in the same shopping mall and the opening hours are usually more generous. In Sweden it is also now possible to buy none-prescription medication in the supermarket. So far so good. But at the same time pharmacies in Sweden will not open stores in rural areas or keep expensive and unusual medication in inventory. To make things even more questionable many pharmacies are now also selling shampoo and soap. Sometimes these items are taking more and more space in the pharmacies which often have become smaller than before (probably one effect of high competition) so it is rather amusing that under the free market pharmacies are selling objects that does not have anything to do with medicine.
What is sad is that some pharmacies websites are not only writing information regarding disorders that is treatable with medication but also tend to write about health in general. Unfortunately there are errors when they write about for instance massage. On one Swedish website I found that a pharmacy wrote that massage treated tension in tendons and ligaments. This is not correct due to the fact that tendons and ligaments does not have any physiological contractile properties in them. The major schools of massage therapy in Sweden does not even teach that massage should be applied on tendons or ligaments. But in orthopaedic medicine where the health care practitioner often is a physiotherapist manual frictions could be done in some cases on the tendons and ligaments. The same website also wrote that massage could be used for treatment of strains which also is incorrect because it is considered as a contra indication for massage therapy.
In conclusion I believe it is better that every professions within the health care community work with what they have been educated in and are specialized in. Just because one has studied human biology and medical subjects does not mean that one has any knowledge in every field of medicine or health science. Most textbook in physiology and different medical subjects does not contain anything on the topics of massage therapy or complementary medicine.
