Friday, November 30, 2007

Healing touch therapy thrives despite skeptics


By Vivianne Rodrigues

NEW YORK (Reuters) - It's not traditional medicine but patients love it: an unconventional therapy called the healing touch that is gaining acceptance in some U.S. hospitals.

The technique uses light touch and deep breathing to address energy imbalances, its advocates say. Though research on it is limited, the therapy is practiced at 30 U.S. hospitals and by nearly 2,000 certified therapists, according to Healing Touch International, based in Denver.

"Healing touch raised my awareness and brought me a deep state of relaxation, which is not something you can get just by taking pain medicine," said Sarla Santos, 40, a nurse who underwent lung surgery in October and receives healing touch therapy at New York University Medical Center.

"Pain medication takes the pain out but doesn't make you feel good or calm."

The U.S. National Institutes of Health classifies healing touch as "energy medicine," in which practitioners believe illness results from disturbances of subtle energy fields, and calls it controversial.

The NIH says neither the external energy fields nor the therapeutic effects have been demonstrated convincingly.

NYU Medical Center has approved it as a complement to traditional rehabilitation, offering patients and staff free sessions as part of the hospital's MindBody Patient Care Program.

The system incorporates ancient Asian healing techniques and was developed in the 1980s by Janet Mentgen, a nurse in Colorado.

A healing touch therapist will gently touch or glide his hands through the patient's energy points or affected areas, such as shoulders, feet and forehead. The practitioner concentrates on each point for a few minutes.

Lisa Anselme, executive director at the Denver organization, said the method was not meant to stand alone.

"Healing touch is not intended to replace standard treatment. It's a complementary therapy," said Anselme, a registered nurse and healing touch practitioner.

Jackie Levin, a nurse who coordinates the NYU program, said the treatment works well for people with anxiety, depression and stress associated with surgery and cancer treatments.

"It's very safe, very calming and in the end, almost everyone can benefit from it," said Levin.

Nancy Hauserman, 58, a college professor in Iowa City, sought healing touch therapy twice, first during a period of emotional distress and then after foot surgery.

"I would still see my doctor, but I wanted to make sure that there were no blockages between my mind and body at that time," Hauserman said. "In fact, my own doctor was extremely impressed with how fast my wound has healed."

(Editing by Doina Chiacu)

Healing Touch: A Cost Effectiveness Study

Healing Touch: A Cost Effectiveness Study
Mary Beth Lodge, RN, BSN, CHTP

"A cost effectiveness study was conducted to assess the overall impact of the
inclusion of energy medicine (Healing Touch) and imagery on utilization of benefits and medical costs. It was a thirteen-month study with 440 employees in a self-insured manufacturing company. Healing Touch was included as a benefit available to any employee or dependent covered under the medical benefits plan. There were a total of 38 participants with chronic disease. Overall medical costs were higher during the study year than the previous year. The cost of the study represented on 3% of total medical benefit costs to the company. A co-pay comparable to other outpatient benefits of the medical plan would have reduced this. The company decided to include Healing Touch in its benefit plan with a co-pay after receiving demands for continuation of this service from study participants."
What is Healing Touch?

· Healing Touch is a complimentary (or integrative) energy therapy that can be used in conjunction with traditional therapies or as a stand-alone treatment.
· Healing Touch is an energy based therapy that is used internationally and found in numerous hospitals and medical offices throughout the United States.
· Healing Touch has been actively researched since its inception and has been granted funding from many medical centers, universities and other supporters of Integrative Medicine including National Institute of Health (Office of Complimentary-Alternative Medicine).
· Healing Touch is for people & pets

Healing Touch aids in:
· Reduction of pain, anxiety and stress
· Faster recovery from injury
· Accelerated post-operative recovery and improve mobility after surgery
· Decreased depression
· Reduced effects of trauma, chronic pain and post traumatic stress
· Enhanced quality of life
· Immune system strengthening and support
· Relieve symptoms associated with chemotherapy
· Deeper sense of spiritual connection
What to expect during a Healing Touch session:
Healing Touch sessions begin with the client filling out an intake form to let the practitioner know what they are feeling physically and/or emotionally to better aide in getting the most out of their session. Client and practitioner then discuss what is going on with client; client will then lie on the massage table fully clothed. Healing Touch utilizes light or near body touch to clear balance and energize the energy system in an effort to promote healing for the mind, body and or spirit. After the Healing Touch treatment you are asked about your session, how you are feeling, and to answer any questions you may have. Generally clients have a greater sense of well being after a session.

Healing Touch does not replace medical care.

Contact Information:
Phone: 586.719.4582
Email: CaroleHealingTouch@Hotmail.com

Story by Phil Galewitz for USA Today Healing touch: A new patient outreach program

Healing touch: A new patient outreach program

Healing touch practioners Karen Lynch and Paula Kobelt use the technique on Sheldon Smith at Grant Medical Center in Columbus, Ohio.

POPULAR, BUT UNPROVEN

Healing touch was developed by Janet Mentgen, a nurse who has used energy-based care in her practice in Colorado since 1980. Mentgen and some of her colleagues developed a training program that incorporated the techniques, which borrow concepts from ancient Asian healing traditions.

The National Institutes of Health classifies healing touch as a "biofield" therapy because its effects are thought to be a result of manipulation of energy fields around the body.

The NIH considers healing touch and other types of energy medicine "among the most controversial of complementary and alternative medicine practices because neither the external energy fields nor their therapeutic effects have been demonstrated convincingly by any biophysical means."

Nonetheless, NIH notes on its website that energy medicine is gaining popularity in the marketplace and is now being studied at several academic medical centers.
Results of those tests are still pending.

By Phil Galewitz, Special for USA TODAY
Susan Iliff was out of the hospital within four days after open-heart surgery and never needed any pain medication.

She credited her speedy, painless recovery not just to her doctors, but also to an unconventional type of therapy she received at Scripps Green Hospital in La Jolla, Calif.: a daily dose of healing touch therapy.

Every day, a nurse slowly guided her hands along Iliff's legs and feet and then lightly touched her elbows, wrists and forehead, stopping at each point for about a minute. By the end of the 30-minute session, Iliff would fall asleep in her hospital bed.

"It just put me into a deep state of relaxation," says Iliff, 58, a retired nurse who received the therapy in 2002 and 2005 at the hospital.

Scripps Green is one of at least 100 U.S. hospitals that have started offering the service in the past 15 years. Although there are no large clinical trials that prove its worth, hospitals offer healing touch based on strong anecdotal evidence that it works and the fact that there are no safety worries with this non-invasive procedure, says Diane Wardell, an associate professor of nursing at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston and a healing touch provider.
FIND MORE STORIES IN: Medicine | Medical Center | Lynch | Karen | Healing

"Hospitals are being motivated by patients asking for complements to traditional care," Wardell says. "It's always a step forward for patients when alternative care is integrated into hospital settings."

Not just a rubdown
Healing touch is not a massage. Sometimes the practitioner's hands hover above the body and don't actually make contact. Healing touch is an "energy therapy" that uses gentle hand techniques purported to help re-pattern the patient's energy field and accelerate healing of the body and mind. It is based on the belief that people have fields of energy that are in constant interaction with the environment around them, Wardell says.

More than 86,000 nurses and other health professionals use healing touch in hospitals and in private practice, according to Healing Touch International, a non-profit Colorado-based group that certifies practitioners. Many hospitals offer the service at no extra cost —largely because insurance doesn't pay for it. Outside the hospital setting, healing touch costs about the same as a massage therapist — or between $80 to $100 an hour.

The limited studies suggest its effectiveness in a wide variety of conditions, including speeding wound healing following heart surgery, reducing the impact of osteoarthritis and migraine headaches, and reducing anxiety and depression for women undergoing radiation treatment for breast cancer.

At Scripps Green Hospital, healing touch is offered to all open-heart surgery patients. "This is so safe and there is no risk," says Erminia "Mimi" Guarneri, a cardiologist and medical director of Scripps Center for Integrative Medicine.

Guarneri became a believer in healing touch a decade ago when a viral infection knocked her out of work for the first time in years.

"After the treatment, I felt like I had so much energy and I felt better almost immediately," she says. "I felt if this can help me this much, it can help my patients."

Many concede that when they first heard about healing touch they thought it was weird. "I thought it looked a little kooky," says Karen Lynch, a pain management nurse at Grant Medical Center in Columbus, Ohio. That was her reaction when she saw nurses provide the therapy in the hospital's coronary care unit.

But when Lynch showed up for work with abdominal pain a few years ago, she gave healing touch a shot. "In a few minutes, the pain was completely relieved," she says. "That's when I started wondering what was going on with this stuff and began getting trained in it."

Doctors support treatment
Lynch says most doctors don't fully understand how healing touch works, but they believe it when they see patients improve. "It's difficult for me to understand, but it works and there's nothing to lose, and it shows we are treating patients in a caring manner."

Arthur Katz, a heart surgeon in Boca Raton, Fla., says he's convinced healing touch has helped re-energize his patients who were struggling after surgery. "Every time I have used it on one of my patients, I have had a favorable outcome," he says. "The body is more than a machine. It has a mechanical component but also an emotional and psychological component and an energy component."

Last year, he did coronary bypass surgery on a woman in her mid-50s. Although the surgery went well, she was depressed after the procedure and was not motivated to get out of bed or to do other things to help her recovery.

"I tried everything I know. A firm approach, the nice-guy approach to encourage her, but nothing worked," Katz says. "After a healing touch session, she was like a different person with a smile on her face."
Share this story: