Studies and Progress Notes (June 2007)

* *  SPIRITUAL AWARENESS AND WHOLISTIC HEALING * * 

The effect of healing touch on pain and mood in institutionalized elders

Effects of Healing Touch (HT) and Therapeutic Touch (TT) on pain, anxiety, pulse and respiration levels were studied for in elderly people in a long-term care setting over an eight month period

“The treatment group had 19 subjects with a median age of 81.9 years (SD=11.35). The control group included four subjects… The experimental group each received one treatment per week consisting of a 20-30 minute session of HT/TT techniques. Pre and post assessment of pain, emotional feelings to provide an anxiety rating (nervous, tense, happy, worried), pulse and respiration were conducted. The control group received a weekly assessment using the same tools for self-rating of pain and emotional scoring, but no treatment.

Overall, HT reduced pain by 50% (p = .00). The reduction in pain remained significant when controlling for number of sessions received, initial belief in the effectiveness of HT and experience of acute or chronic pain. Effect on mood, pulse and respirations was not clinically significant. HT practitioners with more experience elicited the best results. The finding that the practitioner did affect the pain results may be due to skill level of the practitioner or due to social interaction/therapeutic effect of the individual. It was also interesting to note that while the majority of participants, on initial assessment, felt somewhat doubtful that the treatment might help them, the overwhelming majority did indeed achieve significant effect.”

Source: Gelhaart, C. Healing Touch for elders in institutions. Healing Touch Newsletter, 2000, 10(3), 8.

IJHC – WHR Observations

It is helpful to have a study confirming that spiritual healing is helpful in treating pain in the elderly. People in this age group are prone to side effects from medications for pain and other problems. The medications often diminish the quality of life. HT and TT have no known negative effects, and are thus safe to use in treating the elderly.

 * *  FUTURE RESEARCH IN WHOLISTIC HEALING * * 

The IJHC/WHR E-Zine features monthly suggestions for future research in healing.
READERS ARE INVITED TO SUBMIT SUGGESTIONS FOR TOPICS TO STUDY
If your topic is chosen, you ill receive free access to the IJHC for a month, including the current issue and all back issues.
 

CAM interventions vs. spiritual healing/ intent as interventions

I have often mused over the relative benefits of spiritual healing compared to those of other CAM modalities. Mental intent to heal can activate spiritual healing effects. Therefore, one has to wonder how much of the effects of other CAM modality interventions is due to the acupuncture, homeopathic remedy, or whatever other modality that is applied, and how much to the intent of the therapist to heal. It appears worth while to do controlled studies of spiritual healing with other CAM therapies as comparison treatments, including also a non-treatment group as baseline comparison group.

In addition to quantitative assessments of change, qualitative studies of healing interactions perceived/ experienced by healers and healess/ clients/ respants (‘responsible participants’ – per Bernie Siegel) would be helpful.

* *  WHOLISTIC APPROACHES * * 

UK program to prevent chilren’s accidents that bring them to emergency rooms

“Since 2001, staff at the Action on Children's Accidents Project (ACAP) in East Lancashire [England]  have shown it is possible to cut the number of accidents among children.

A simple kit costing just a few pounds provided to parents taking part in SureStart programmes has reduced the number of children going to hospital by 660 last year compared to 2001 when the scheme was introduced, a fall of 21%.

Fireguards, safety gates, smoke alarms and safety catches on cupboards are all provided and fitted by staff on the scheme who also spend up to an hour with families to increase awareness of hazards.

Julie Carman, who heads the scheme, said the ACAP staff go in with a check-list of common causes of accidents in the local area. ‘These are things like getting burnt with a cup of tea on the floor or hair straighteners that have been left on.”

While the intervention costs around £175, the families are charged only £5.

The marked decrease in incidence of children going to A&E is estimated to have saved the National Health Service around £1.9m a year, ‘but the real figure could be much higher as they cannot tell what accidents they have prevented. The cost of an average accident is £5,000 but for example a serious burn costs the NHS £250,000.”

“Prevention is definitely better than cure, and we really do need to be looking at things that prevent people getting into A&E in the first place."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6339919.stm
Action on Children's Accidents Project (ACAP)
http://www.bprpct.nhs.uk/acap/acap_home.htm
children’s accidents
http://www.bprpct.nhs.uk/acap/acap_accidents.htm
 

IJHC – WHR Observations

In general, we see very short-sighted healthcare programs, which are mostly reactive rather than proactive. In accidents as in many other aspects of healthcare, it is far easier and more economical and more humane to prevent problems than to treat them once they are present.

 * *  COMPLEMENTARY THERAPIES * * 

Regular acupressure may significantly reduce agitated behaviour in dementia

Acupressure significantly reduced agitated behaviour in older patients with dementia. Researchers at the National Yang-Ming University in Taiwan found that providing 15-minute treatment sessions twice a day for five days a week yielded considerable benefits, including reductions in verbal and physical attacks and wandering.  But once the four-week treatment period ended, agitation levels started to rise again, suggesting that acupressure needs to be provided on an ongoing basis.

20 patients were studied All lived in dementia special care units at a long-term care facility. 70 per cent of the patients suffered from severe behavioural disturbances, with a further five per cent suffering from extremely severe impairment. The remaining 25 per cent were classed as medium.

Yang et al. The efficacy of acupressure for decreasing agitated behaviour in dementia: a pilot study, Journal of Clinical Nursing. Volume 16, pages 308-315. (February 2007).
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/
10.1111/j.1365-2702.2006.01428.x

IJHC – WHR Observations

Sadly, there was no control group in this study, so it is impossible to know whether it was acupuncture or the attention given to these agitated, demented people that made the difference.

More CAM reviews at
www.naturalhealthvillage.com
www.mdlinx.com/FamilyMDLinx 
 www.ucalgary.ca/~camig/litsearch.html
AMSA website
www.amsa.org/humed/camresources/camnews.cfm

* * TECHNOLOGY * *

Mobile phones for the deaf who use sign language

MobileASL is a video compression project at the University of Washington with the goal of making wireless cell phone communication through sign language a reality.

The current wireless telephone network has inadvertently excluded over one million deaf or hard of hearing Americans.

With the advent of cell phone PDAs with larger screens and photo/video capture, people who communicate with American Sign Language (ASL) could utilize these new technologies. However, due to the low bandwidth of the wireless telephone network, even today's best video encoders likely cannot produce the quality video needed for intelligible ASL. A new real time video compression scheme is needed to transmit within the existing wireless network while maintaining video quality that allows users to understand semantics of ASL with ease.

If you are fluent in ASL and willing to participate in user studies, you can sign up here.
http://www.cs.washington.edu/research/MobileASL/

IJHC – WHR Observations

Making cell phone communications possible for the deaf would be a blessing in its own right. In addition, many people who use sign language feel that this mode of communication is qualitatively superior to voice communication – in addition to providing a language for those who cannot hear verbal communications.

* *  ENVIRONMENT (HEALING OUR PLANET) * *

Stern Review on the Economics of Climate change

The most comprehensive review ever carried out on the economics of climate change was published at the end of 2006.

The Review… was carried out by Sir Nicholas Stern, Head of the Government Economic Service and former World Bank Chief Economist [UK].

Sir Nicholas said today:

    “The conclusion of the Review is essentially optimistic. There is still time to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, if we act now and act internationally. Governments, businesses and individuals all need to work together to respond to the challenge. Strong, deliberate policy choices by governments are essential to motivate change.

    But the task is urgent. Delaying action, even by a decade or two, will take us into dangerous territory. We must not let this window of opportunity close.”

The first half of the Review focuses on the impacts and risks arising from uncontrolled climate change, and on the costs and opportunities associated with action to tackle it. A sound understanding of the economics of risk is critical here. The Review emphasises that economic models over timescales of centuries do not offer precise forecasts – but they are an important way to illustrate the scale of effects we might see.

The Review finds that all countries will be affected by climate change, but it is the poorest countries that will suffer earliest and most. Unabated climate change risks raising average temperatures by over 5°C from pre-industrial levels. Such changes would transform the physical geography of our planet, as well as the human geography – how and where we live our lives.
 
Adding up the costs of a narrow range of the effects, based on the assessment of the science carried out by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2001, the Review calculates that the dangers of unabated climate change would be equivalent to at least 5% of GDP each year.

[Digression: Wickipedia explains:
“A region's gross domestic product, or GDP, is one of the ways for measuring the size of its economy. The GDP of a country is defined as the market value of all final goods and services produced within a country in a given period of time. It is also considered the sum of value added at every stage of production of all final goods and services produced within a country in a given period of time.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_domestic_product ]

The Review goes on to consider more recent scientific evidence (for example, of the risks that greenhouse gases will be released naturally as the permafrost melts, the economic effects on human life and the environment, and approaches to modelling that ensure the impacts that affect poor people are weighted appropriately.  Taking these together, the Review estimates that the dangers could be equivalent to 20% of GDP or more.

In contrast, the costs of action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to avoid the worst impacts of climate change can be limited to around 1% of global GDP each year.  People would pay a little more for carbon-intensive goods, but our economies could continue to grow strongly.

If we take no action to control emissions, each ton of CO2 that we emit now is causing damage worth at least $85 – but these costs are not included when investors and consumers make decisions about how to spend their money.  Emerging schemes that allow people to trade reductions in CO2 have demonstrated that there are many opportunities to cut emissions for less than $25 a tonne.   In other words, reducing emissions will make us better off. According to one measure, the benefits over time of actions to shift the world onto a low-carbon path could be in the order of $2.5 trillion each year.

The shift to a low-carbon economy will also bring huge opportunities. Markets for low-carbon technologies will be worth at least $500bn, and perhaps much more, by 2050 if the world acts on the scale required.

Tackling climate change is the pro-growth strategy; ignoring it will ultimately undermine economic growth.”
http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/independent_reviews/
stern_review_economics_climate_change/
sternreview_index.cfm

IJHC – WHR Observations

The short-sightedness and self-centerdness of most of the world governments and multinational corporations is indefensible. The costs of global warming will be catastrophic economically as well as in terms of human dislocations due to climate changes and coastal flooding.

WRITE YOUR ELECTED SENATORS AND CONGRESSPERSON (APPROPRIATE GOVERNMENTAL OFFICIALS IN OTHER COUNTRIES) TO LET THEM KNOW YOU WILL BE VOTING FOR PEOPLE WHO ARE TAKING THESE ISSUES SERIOUSLY!

Contact your congressperson  http://www.house.gov/writerep/

Contact your senators  http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

 * *  HUMAN ECOLOGY* * 

A 12 year-old girl addresses the UN on the responsibility of adults for all future generations of children
http://youtube.com/watch?v=5g8cmWZOX8Q

IJHC – WHR Observations

This speech is by Severn Suzuki, the daughter of the famous Canadian environmentalist David Suzuki, filmed in the early 1990’s. (Observation of Martina Steiger, ThD, IJHC Assistant Editor.)

This child’s words still carry enormous impact – pointing out the disregard for the welfare of vulnerable humans by decision-making governmental and UN officials.