Discover how you can use acupressure to support symptom relief and wellbeing. In this course, you will learn how acupressure, which is a time-honored healing technique rooted in East Asian Medicine, can become a practical, effective tool in your clinical practice and self-care strategies. Acupressure Essentials is a self-paced, experiential course designed to teach basic principles and applications for symptom management including pressure points for pain, headaches, gastrointestinal disturbances, and wellbeing. By the end of the course, you will be able to demonstrate acupoint protocols, demonstrate an acupressure treatment session, and determine a plan of action for incorporating acupressure into your professional practice and self-care routines.

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Acupressure Essentials: Pressure Point Techniques for Symptom Management and Self-Care
This course is part of Integrative Nursing Specialization


Instructors: Megan Voss
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What you'll learn
Basic concepts of East Asian Medicine (EAM)
Clinical indications for acupressure and the evidence base for its use in symptom management
Acupressure protocols for pain management, gastrointestinal disturbances (constipation, diarrhea, nausea), and wellbeing (anxiety, insomnia, fatigue)
Strategies for incorporating acupressure into your professional practice and self-care routines
Skills you'll gain
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There are 4 modules in this course
The first module is Clinical Acupressure Fundamentals. Our goal is to establish a context you can use to incorporate acupressure into clinical patient care. We’ll review basic concepts of East Asian Medicine (EAM), discuss the mechanism of action for acupressure and the state of the research evidence base for acupoint therapies, and start exploring strategies for adding acupressure to your professional practice. You’ll also get a chance to begin practicing some basic acupressure techniques.
What's included
24 videos9 readings2 assignments1 discussion prompt
This week, we are focusing on acupressure for pain. You’ll learn acupoints and protocols for managing headache, jaw, sinus, neck, shoulder, back, and abdominal pain. Illustrated guides and tutorial videos will give you step-by-step instructions that you can follow at your own pace. Use your judgment to identify the most relevant pieces for your patients and apply them to the life that you're already living and in the practice that you already have.
What's included
21 videos4 readings1 assignment1 discussion prompt
In this module our hands-on exploration of acupressure continues. We’ll shift our focus to acupoints and protocols for gastrointestinal disturbances (constipation, diarrhea, and nausea/dyspepsia) and wellbeing (anxiety, depressed mood, insomnia, and fatigue). In addition to the protocols you are learning, targeted massage is another way to introduce acupressure into your practice. Megan demonstrates a few clinical scenarios where she uses massage to stimulate multiple relaxation-promoting acupoints on a patient in the space of 5-15 minutes.
What's included
12 videos7 readings2 assignments1 peer review1 discussion prompt
Your goal this week is to create a plan of action for incorporating acupressure into your professional practice and self-care routines. Guided activities will help you identify your next steps. You’ll also hear a variety of clinicians speak about their successes and challenges in using acupressure with patients.
What's included
14 videos5 readings1 assignment1 discussion prompt
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Reviewed on Jun 15, 2023
It was a very valuable course and I am very grateful to you. I learned very practical lessons that I can use in my work and I know that I will get the best results.
Reviewed on Jun 14, 2022
Great information and I can't wait to use it in my practice as an integrative nurse!
Reviewed on Apr 27, 2023
This course was delivered very well however the audio of the videos could be better and the subtitles aren't very accurate.

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Frequently asked questions
Acupuncture and acupressure utilize the same system of points developed in East Asian Medicine. Only licensed acupuncturists can perform acupuncture, however, in this course, you’ll learn how to stimulate the same therapeutic points utilized by acupuncturists without the use of needles or other devices that require specialized training. Acupressure is a safe and effective alternative to acupuncture that can be used as part of a self-care routine. Some massage techniques that are designed to be simple yet intentional in stimulating multiple acupressure points will be demonstrated to maximize the therapeutic benefit of acupressure.
This course will demonstrate pressure point protocols for common types of pain including managing headache, jaw, sinus, neck, shoulder, back, and abdominal pain. The course will also explore protocols for managing gastrointestinal disturbances (constipation, diarrhea, and nausea/dyspepsia) and wellbeing (anxiety, depressed mood, insomnia, and fatigue) .
Yes, the course includes expertly illustrated images that clearly demonstrate how to locate acupressure points. The course also includes engaging videos that will show you how to locate each point even if you have very little knowledge of human anatomy.
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Financial aid available,