There are a few considerations that you would need to discuss with your therapist, the main ones being

• Uncontrolled Seizures

• Another intensive autism treatment is planned to begin at the same time.

• Drugs that delay progress with QST for Autism.

Therapists are very skilled in working with children who have difficulty lying down …. We have strategies that we can coach you in to support the massage to be performed in a way that is still effective until their nervous system is calm enough to lie down. The time this takes will vary from child to child.

No, you can continue sessions with your regular OT, Speech, physio, etc.

It is, however, important not to introduce another intensive therapy at the same time, such as ABA, Chelation Therapy, or another form of body work.

With the benefits that QST brings (improvements in self-regulation, language and social skills), it can make it easier for other therapists to work with your child, and their therapies can be more effective.

QST is a relatively new therapy, although it has been practised in the USA since 2005. There is a limited number of Australian therapists trained so far. Many more therapists work in the USA, where the QST Institute is based; however, there are therapists now trained in Canada, Europe, Asia, the UK, New Zealand and Australia.

QST brings together a combination of both Western and Chinese medicine, which is a recent collaboration. This is also happening in other areas of medicine in the Universities around Australia. Dr Louisa Silva was a leader in this field.

It may be challenging depending on the parents’ own touch or sensory issues and their ability to recognise how the massage needs to be adapted for their child. With assistance from a therapist, it can still be done effectively.

While research has been done on children up to the age of 12, therapists and parents have reported doing the massage on older children with positive outcomes. It does require more energy to work on a larger child, so it can be beneficial if you have one or more other close friends or family members who can help. Unfortunately, there have not been any research studies on older children, so we cannot definitely say it will help.

The massage can be performed at any time of day. Most parents have found it works well to do QST as part of the bedtime routine as it has a calming effect and facilitates sleep.

You can however do QST when it fits in best with your family’s routine.

Establishing a routine of 'same time each day. ' can help with consistency for child and parent. 

With qigong massage, we are providing an organised, therapeutic stimulus to the brain via the skin, and we do not want to confuse or dilute that effect with another form of massage or body work.

The evidence-based research for QST was carried out with children up to the age of 12. Anecdotally, therapists, parents and children older than 12 have reported benefits from doing QST. However, there has not been any research conducted in an older age group 13+ at this time.