Issue link: https://www.massageandbodyworkdigital.com/i/1299745
C h e c k o u t A B M P P o c k e t P a t h o l o g y a t w w w. a b m p . c o m / a b m p - p o c k e t - p a t h o l o g y - a p p . 65 We don't yet know how moments of manageability and supported coping can affect the overall trajectory of a patient's hospital stay or illness, but there are real possibilities here for augmentation of what is now standard of care. The study resulted in data from over 1,000 massage sessions provided to 417 hospitalized patients over the course of a little less than two years. We collected a lot of data—a lot of which is still being analyzed.Healwell and our study partners will spend the remainder of 2020 and the better part of 2021 teasing out the most compelling and curious data from those sessions in two to four additional quantitative papers. A CLOSER LOOK In this article, we'll focus on a paper we recently published in Complementary Therapies in Medicine, which analyzes the experiences of a subset of 12 patients (out of 417) who participated in that larger study. 1 These 12 participants engaged in "semi-structured interviews" conducted by a research assistant and one palliative care physician who worked on the study. In order to qualify for the study, a patient had to be deemed "palliative care eligible." Palliative care is interdisciplinary care (detailed care plans created by practitioners from various medical disciplines or specialties) that is intended to improve symptoms and quality of life. Palliative care is not—as many people assume—end-of-life care. However, when educating other providers about the "types" of patients qualified to participate in the study, the misunderstanding of palliative care persisted, and most of our study patients were, indeed, very seriously or terminally ill. Some patients experienced hospitalizations in which they knew their lives would end as a result of the inevitable progression of disease. Some were recovering from invasive surgeries that resulted in painful healing processes. Others were dealing with months-long, intractable infections or fractures, or chronically malfunctioning long-term care equipment. These were people whose quality of life was understandably challenged or diminished. Each participant in the semi-structured interviews received at least one massage session during their hospitalization. Some received a massage every day for three consecutive days at some point during their hospitalization. None of the sessions were longer than 20 minutes. In contrast, the average length of stay for the study patients was 40 days. Some had been in the hospital for 60 or even 100 or more days by the time they received massage as study subjects. Massage therapy, thereby, was a relatively small aspect of their hospital experience. These interviews yielded some vitally important insights: • Patients shared that the most important aspects of their hospitalization were things like loneliness, monotony, difficulty sleeping, and discomfort caused by the invasive nature of frequent measurements and procedures. (It's important to note that many of the patients also remarked that, as a result of a variety of factors, they did not have family or friend visitors, so they felt isolated and separated from their usual support networks.) • Patients reported a variety of direct and measurable improvements in their symptoms of pain and anxiety, including an increased sense of peacefulness and a decreased sense of distress. • Patients remarked that the massage therapists—not the actual techniques— supported them in feeling cared for, important, and connected, creating a sense of companionship. • Some patients remarked that the sessions resulted in better sleep and less pain specifically. • All patients reported feeling more able to cope with their situation after the massage—whether it was a single session or three sessions. I strongly encourage you to read the paper. It's a quick read, and if you're not well-versed in research, you will still find it quite accessible. IT TAKES A VILLAGE Humans are nowhere near solving the problem of deep-level touch deprivation on the planet Earth, so when nurses—or even lay volunteers—provide kind but scripted "massage," it often shows positive effect and reinforces that contact of this kind should be supported and fostered in care settings everywhere. That's great news, and this type of research is not a threat to our profession, but it does not inherently advance it either. Kind touch is a part of massage therapy, but it's not the whole picture.