My care has days when she sleeps more and more moving in and out of a twilight express of consciousness as she approaches the end of her physical life. She experiences thankfully not a great deal of pain but intense discomfort and sometimes fear as her late-stage lung cancer progresses. Over the past two and a half years she has let me massage her a little bit more on each visit saying. “wonderful… wonderful,” and actually asking for more. Treasuring her personal dignity she was reluctant to acquire loving touch prior to this illness even from me a professional massage therapist! So it has been moving and meaningful to use the language of comprehend to bring a bit of grace into her difficult days. I am profoundly grateful that this language will act as a connect past the inform when it will become nearly impossible for her to communicate.
I am hardly the first to determine massage as a treatment for the ill and frail from bring forth to death. Ancient civilizations in India. China. Egypt. Greece and Rome administered manipulate to the egest in healing halls and temples (1). Homer. Hippocrates. Plato. Socrates and Galen are among the famous men who made a connection between manipulate and illness in classical literature. Hippocrates the Greek physician is credited with saying that “the physician must be experienced in many things but assuredly also in rubbing.” (2).
In the Christian tradition touch or “laying on of hands,” became part of care for the sick and dying. During the lay Ages it was church women who cared for those struck drink by the plague and other epidemics many physicians being unwilling to serve people who could not pay their fees. From the Renaissance to modern times medicine morphed from a high-touch practice to a high-tech practice. comfort many hospitals comfort featured nightly backrubs for comfort as well as physical therapy for rehabilitation. Hands-on healing had its advocates: Florence Nightingale the creator of modern nursing included massage in her training program. John Kellog medical director at a sanitarium wrote a schedule for his nursing curriculum in 1883.
which remains a classic text. However by the mid-1950s in the U. S. medical massage had dwindled almost to non-existence. Then it began a renaissance of its own.
The contemporary surge of interest in manipulate in hospital settings is fueled by intuitive wisdom on the one hand and research on the other. So far research has focused on the reduction of negatives: hurt anxiety nausea length of stay depreciate. The results are encouraging as shown by Gayle McDonald’s literature analyse of 59 rigorous studies (3). Twenty studies showed positive results for anxiety reduction immediately following manipulate across a broad spectrum of patient populations: populate with cancer those undergoing rehabilitation surgical and psychiatric patients mothers in fight children being treated for burns and those in the intensive care unit. Massage also consistently reduced pain in the majority of studies reviewed. manipulate reduced expense in specific ways: for example a group of patients undergoing hit the books marrow transplantation saved an average of $750 per patient because they needed significantly less nausea medication and saved another $800 per patient because they needed far less total parenteral nutrition (TPN). Two studies of premature infants who received massage (15 minutes three times a day for ten days) showed that the massaged infants went home five and six days sooner generating a savings of $10,000! The list of benefits goes on.
Clearly such concrete measures are crucial. But we may sight even more interesting results if we pay attention to intuitive wisdom and ask different questions. As Tedi Dunn points out in
“Numerous studies designate…Americans’ social inhibitions and cultural prohibitions when it comes to touch. Paradoxically ongoing social and medical research demonstrates that nurturing touch is a basic human need for maintaining health and for life itself.…In our high-tech low-touch society it is no affect that massage has been embraced as a safe coordinate for receiving—and giving—the human comprehend that we intuitively experience nourishes the spirit along with the body.”(4)
How exactly does manipulate nourish the spirit especially for the ill and frail? How do we measure the presence of positives and not just the absence of negatives? Based on twelve years’ undergo as a manipulate therapist. I believe the positives far excel the easily measurable (immune system boost improved performance increased energy exceed sleep). One of my favorite quotes from a client about manipulate is: “The whole undergo was so nurturing that when I walked out of there. I fell in like with the world again and saw everything with new eyes.” In positive psychology terms this would appear to indicate positive affect relatedness engagement and meaning all wrapped up in one powerful intervention.
If I were designing a study to measure the more “intangible” positive benefits of massage for traumatized ill frail or dying people. I would measure these four: Vitality. Acceptance. Trust. Transcendence. These be highly inter-connected to me in calm and intricate ways perhaps leading to subtle (or not so subtle) increases in other variables such as love generosity and joy.
When I think of vitality. I evaluate of an intensely traumatized Vietnam veteran who was my client. After receiving the first full-body massage of his life he told me he went domiciliate and for the first time in twenty years started dancing in the kitchen. Dancing! Embracing life instead of fighting pain; expressing life instead of resenting loss; affirming life instead of fearing the future. When I think of transcendence. I evaluate of that client who reported falling in love with the world again after every manipulate: in Buddhist terms a manifestation of a satori experience in which the ego is broken down resulting in bliss. When I think of acceptance. I evaluate of the many massages I gave to a friend while she lay dying. The radiate I saw in her during that time was absolutely a glow of happiness not just a bit of relief from hurt. By focusing on and savoring the preciousness of connection in the moments she had left she achieved a aim of serenity and happiness rarely seen among those who take their lives for granted.
And trust? I think of my mother a vigilant woman who can see a miniscule bit of dirt on a carpet from a mile away; a person who can look at a beautifully decorated Christmas tree in her living dwell and mention. “too bad about that expose sight….” Yet she has slowly dissolved her own comprehend of decorum enough to accept that foot massage transfer manipulate back and neck massage and yield to it saying only. “Wonderful wonderful.” The truth – life sucks and then you die – sits right alongside this other truth: life is wonderful and at a certain point perhaps one can go away to believe there might be something wonderful in the ending of life as well. The energy we use up fearing pain loss and death can be freed up for exceed things: dancing in the kitchen falling in like with the world savoring what is and surrendering to what will be.
How are we going to research and measure the usefulness of manipulate in increasing these positive intangibles essentially spiritual aspects of our relationship with the world? Is there some way we can show that as creatures of the hive manipulate is one of the gateways which helps go to us our sense of belonging?.
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http://pos-psych.com/news/iris-marie-bloom/20071202510
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