Joe Turner
Date of Birth: March 20, 1935
Education: Sociology – UC Berkley, De Anza College – Orthopedic Massage Therapy, Physical Therapy Assistant
Experience: Took classes at De Anza and learned Mandarin, visited china seven times since 2006, studied theraputic techniques in Chengdu, China, in the Sichuan Province
Passions: Reading and writing.
How long have you been working at De Anza College?
“Right now I am [a volunteer]. But I worked for the last 11 years, as a massage therapist. They had to cut back.”
You used something similar in patients with PTSD. What have you incorporated from that here?
“In the Navy, [I worked] mostly with people from the Vietnam war. I was in the Navy Reserve. Guasha is a skin scraping technique. It uses a jade tool and removes stuck blood from within the muscle fibers and it’s very effective, often times more effective than ice.
I have a number of different shaped [tools]. And because I’m more of a medical intuitive, I can see the striations of the various muscle forms.
In your opinion, what may some people be unaware of when it comes to adaptive fitness?
“You become aware of [adaptive fitness] because all other health options stop. For instance, you can go to a physical therapist and your insurance covers it, at least for a little bit … you go home with a stack of papers saying these are the stretches you should do. In [some] cases, it’s simple – you can take classes. But to think of someone in a power chair that has to pay for a caregiver, this is an oasis.”
