Therapeutic touch helps residents in palliative care
Holistic treatment helps reduce pain without medication
Wednesday April 30, 2008 -- Deron Hamel
As a registered nurse (RN), Lillian Cranley admits she was once skeptical of the idea that touch therapy could be used to reduce pain. But once she started to see the positive results that people in pain had with therapeutic touch, she changed her mind.

Touch therapy is a holistic approach to treating pain symptoms. In the 10 years since becoming a therapeutic touch practitioner Cranley has seen it work wonders with residents in palliative units in long-term care homes.

“It’s wonderful for pain, nausea, for relaxation, stress and it’s wonderful for palliative care because it helps the person ease into the dying process,” says Cranley. “It gives them a lot of relief.”

Therapeutic touch works by balancing the energy around a person’s body. For example, if a person is feeling pain in their neck the spot where the pain occurs will most often feel warm to the touch.

To relieve the pain, a therapeutic touch practitioner will position their hands about six inches away from the pain spot and use their own body’s energy to draw the excess energy out of the troubled area, thus reducing the pain.

Cranley was one of the eight presenters at the Four Counties Long-Term Care Palliative Network, held in Peterborough March 20. The network holds five workshops annually to discuss best practices in palliative care in long-term care homes. The network consists of representatives from long-term care homes in Peterborough, Haliburton, Northumberland and Kawartha Lakes counties.

As part of her presentation, Cranley explained the benefits of touch therapy and performed demonstrations.

Aside from reducing pain, Cranley has also seen touch therapy lower the frequency and sometimes the dosage of pain medication to residents in palliative care.

Cranley adds that touch therapy is becoming more accepted by the acute care sector.

“When I first started doing this about 10 years ago you were slipping into hospitals, hoping they didn’t see you,” she says. “Now they’re welcoming you to come in (because) they know that their patient is going to feel less pain, be relaxed, sleep better and have a general sense of well-being.”

In the Therapeutic Touch Network of Ontario newsletter, Nancy Hall, an RN and therapeutic touch practitioner, writes that she has seen many benefits touch therapy has brought to residents in palliative units of long-term care homes.

Hall writes that therapeutic touch has added the concept of “centering” to her palliative care practice.

“I know that by being centred I am bringing into that person’s home my peacefulness, my full attention and my intuition,” she writes. “It helps me determine what is the greatest need in that household at that moment.”

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