This repeated-session design sought to answer questions about the effectiveness of therapeutic touch in reduction of stress for 23 individuals following a natural disaster. In addition, methodological issues related to the average length of time for a therapeutic-touch treatment and a method of documenting the nonverbal interaction between subject and toucher were investigated. Findings indicate that stressed people report themselves to be less stressed following therapeutic touch (p = .05). Time of therapeutic-touch intervention varied significantly between the touchers, with a range of 6.8 to 20 minutes. Qualitative data examining the interaction of toucher and subject raised a number of questions that require further study.
This four-group, repeated-measures experimental design divided 40 healthy professional caregivers/students into high- and low-anxiety groups and further into "therapeutic touch" and comparison groups. The effectiveness of the use of therapeutic touch in reducing anxiety was evaluated, as were the methodologies used. Three self-report measures of anxiety (Profile of Mood States, Spielberger's State/Trait Anxiety Inventory, and visual analogue scales) were evaluated for equivalence and concurrent validity to determine their potential for use in future studies. The correlations among these instruments were highly significant. The small sample size prevented differences between groups from reaching statistical significance, but the reduction of anxiety in the high-anxiety group was greater for those who had received therapeutic touch than for those who did not. Using variability data, the sample size necessary to find statistically significant differences between those who had therapeutic touch and those who did not was determined.
This study was designed to determine whether power spectral analysis (PSA) of heart rate variability (HRV) can detect change in autonomic tone following a relaxation intervention called therapeutic touch (TT). Thirty healthy subjects underwent TT by one of three TT practitioners using the steps developed by Krieger and Kunz (The Therapeutic Touch, Prentice-Hall, 1979). Both subjects and TT practitioners were monitored by continuous electrocardiographic monitoring (Holter) before (15 minutes), during, and after (15 minutes) TT was administered. Subjects and TT practitioners completed a visual analogue scale (VAS) of perceived stress before and after TT. Change scores for VAS and PSA of high-frequency/low-frequency (HF/LF) ratios were compared for the 2-minute interval before TT began and the end of TT and the end of the recovery period, using t tests. VAS scores decreased (less stress) from before to after TT for both subjects (p < 0.0005) and TT practitioners (p < 0.0005). Mean HF/LF ratios increased significantly to reflect greater parasympathetic dominance from before TT to the end of treatment for subjects (p = 0.006), but not for TT practitioners. However, further analysis revealed that this change was due to an exaggerated HF/LF response from four outliers (p < 0.0005). Data collected in this study did not reveal differences between these four subjects and the rest of the sample. There were no significant changes in HF/LF ratios from the end of TT to end of recovery for either group. Further research is needed to determine why some subjects may have greater change in autonomic tone in response to relaxation in order to be able to predict who will demonstrate physiologic response to relaxation interventions.
When 145 senior citizens living independently in the community were surveyed for incidence of near-death experiences (NDEs), 46 of the seniors believed they had had a "close call" with death. Twelve of those reported that they had had an unusual experience during their close call and were subsequently interviewed. Their stories were evaluated using research criteria to document sufficient number of characteristics of an NDE for inclusion in research data and if that set of characteristics of the NDE included a life review component. They were also compared to a non-NDE group on the Life Satisfaction Index, to determine if life review in the context of an NDE helped older people feel more satisfied with life. There was no correlation, because surprisingly, although older people do have NDEs at least as often as other groups, the life review does not seem to be a part of it. So the reasons for scores on the LSI-A are not attributable to the life review. Reasons for this finding are discussed.
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