If you’re here looking for information on Ashiatsu Oriental Bar Therapy and its recognition by the American Medical Association, then you’re in the right place.
Let me start off by clearing something up. The American Medical Association does not recognize massage as a medical modality, therefore, it does not recognize Ashiatsu Oriental Bar Therapy.
If you were to Google Ashiatsu Oriental Bar Therapy and AMA or American Medical Association you will find numerous websites claiming that AOBT is indeed recognized by the AMA. You can find magazine articles with the same claim if you look hard. One of which actually appears in the Digital Lounge on the Deep Feet website. How could so many people believe this when it’s simply not true?
Well, there’s a simple explanation and I want to tell you so you don’t make the same mistake I did. It was a typo. Way back when, someone published something which was supposed to read, “recognized by the AMTA,” but instead read, “recognized by the AMA”. You can see how this impressive typo quickly took root.
Recently when asked to write an article on AOBT I pulled out the AMA gun to include and then realized I needed to do a bit of fact checking. I was confused when some publications / websites listed AMA and others didn’t so I fired off an email to a couple of instructors and Ruthie Hardee, the founder of AOBT.
This resulted in a personal phone call from Ruthie where we discussed my questions about AMA. Well, mostly she discussed and I sorta freaked out because OMG I’m talking to Ruthie Hardee, the founder of AOBT! Squeeeeee!!!
Anyway, I wanted to put this out there so perhaps other people designing their brochures or writing articles on AOBT don’t make the same mistake.
I should go, I have about a thousand brochures that need to be touched with correction tape!