Geelong woman suing massage therapist over stroke claims

ABC NEWS (Australia)

A Geelong woman is suing a massage therapist over claims the treatment caused her to have a stroke. But it's likely to be a tough case for her to win, with only limited research and medical evidence linking massages with strokes.

Transcript

00:00Keeping a house running with 4 kids is a tough task. For Sheridan Digby, suffering a stroke

00:07in 2019 and losing her husband the following year made it even tougher.

00:13It's like an invisible illness. People can't see, people don't automatically look at you

00:18and assume you've had a stroke because you're not paralysed on one side. Having less vision

00:23makes everything harder, having fatigue makes everything harder.

00:27Ms Digby has launched legal action against the masseuse and clinic where she received

00:31a massage the day before her stroke, alleging the treatment caused or contributed to tears

00:37in two of her neck arteries, leading to her stroke.

00:40The masseuse and clinic have denied liability, with the masseuse saying they were extremely

00:44disappointed by the legal claim and denied the allegations outright. They said they felt

00:50for Ms Digby and wished her well, but said they were absolutely confident expert evidence

00:55would prove they did not cause her injuries.

00:58The ABC spoke to a leading expert confirming that yes, a massage could cause a stroke,

01:03but they also stressed that it's an extremely rare occurrence. The key link between any

01:08sufficiently hard neck treatment and a potential stroke is the tearing of an artery's inner

01:13lining, termed an arterial dissection. These do cause blood clots and strokes.

01:19Certainly massage is a less common precipitate of a dissection, certainly for more forceful

01:24and violent things like a severe car whiplash injury would be a more common triggering event

01:30for a dissection, but could a massage in theory cause a dissection? I think it could if it

01:36was forceful enough.

01:39Paul Burns is another Victorian who suffered a stroke shortly after receiving a massage.

01:44I was there in the morning and by the afternoon I was in hospital.

01:47The impact on his ability to parent his young children has been the hardest effect of his

01:51stroke.

01:52My eldest will have a little bit of a grasp on it, but my youngest will never know me

01:58at my best. He'll never know me pre-injury.

02:00Sheridan Digby's case is set to be heard next year.

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