by Elizabeth Darling
About 24 hours had passed since her surgery, and while drugs helped to dull the pain, Bente Haitz was still feeling tense and sore as she lay in the hospital bed. But soon, the tension she felt in her shoulders and even the soreness seemed to lessen, as Helen Campbell, a massage therapist, began rubbing and kneading her feet.
Campbell is one of six massage therapists at Stanford Hospital who are part of a grant-funded study to look at the effects of massage on hospital patients. For almost a year, patients have been offered the service for $20 per half-hour, or free if they are unable to pay. Family and friends can also give patients gift certificates. About 500 patients have received massages so far.
For more than three decades, countries including Denmark, France and Germany have offered massage in hospitals, and in general put a high premium on massage as more of a necessity than a luxury, unlike the way it is viewed in this country. In France, Campbell said, hospitals offer massage around the clock.
"It is not at all (a luxury)," said Haitz, who is Danish. "It's better than Prozac."
Campbell starts with Haitz's feet. "The feet have a great many nerve endings and you can relax the whole body my massaging the feet," she said.
Campbell, who is a former social worker, used to visit patients in convalescent hospitals. "I found what they craved was some exercise. Massage does some of the same things that exercise does. It revs up the immune system, and gets the circulation going, so the person feels like they've exercised."
"It feels wonderful," Haitz says, while Campbell gently rubs her feet. The massage helps distract her from the pain. "I'm able to relax. I think it should be part of all post-surgery."
The Portola Valley resident just had her second mastectomy. Her hospital stay was scheduled to be only two days, but even so, the massage was making her feel almost well enough to go home early.
Massage increases the flow of lymph, a fluid that moves through the body depending on how much the person moves and helps in the healing process. Someone who has been lying in bed and not moving can benefit from massage, Campbell said.
With her left hand pressing the top of Haitz's foot, Campbell gently rubs the sole of the foot with her other hand in a rotating motion, using the Esalen massage technique. "It's slower than Swedish massage and more gentle," she said. "It can go more deeply into the muscle and is ideal for people who've had surgery."
Campbell begins to move up to Haitz's calf muscles and knees. Massage for patients who are bedridden is crucial to help muscles keep their tone and strength. "It helps prevent bedsores and muscle cramps," she said.
"Almost all of the touching (in a hospital) is very clinical, very brief, and is not comforting or reassuring," Campbell said. Patients are poked with needles, strapped with blood pressure cuffs and put on cold steel x-ray tables. "The physical sensations are uncomfortable."
Massage, she said, is a way to help patients feel comforted and touched in a more reassuring way.
Now Campbell begins to work on Haitz's neck and shoulders, holding her forehead while massaging the back of her neck and scalp. "It's often hard to sleep in hospitals because they're so noisy at night," Campbell said, and the body can get tense from lack of sleep.
The massage "is especially good for breast cancer patients," Haitz said, "because the pain is in the upper torso. It's really wonderful." To get through what she has in the last few months, Haitz says you "just need a good attitude and massage therapy." She plans to continue the massage after she gets out of the hospital.
"The response from the patients across the board had been that it is a marvelous program," said Nanette McAlister, manager of patient relations and director of volunteer resources for Stanford Hospital. The pilot phase of the program, which is still going on, has been funded by donations and a grant from the Partners Fund, which finances various hospital programs, including the health library. The massage program began in the cancer unit and has spread throughout the hospital to surgery patients, maternity and ambulatory treatment.
McAlister is seeking a $20,000 grant to expand the program and begin to collect data on the effects of massage on hospital patients, looking at how they felt before the massage and afterward and how it affects their recovery.
This goes along with the trend in the health care industry as a whole, she said, in "looking at ways to support patients in a non-medical way, looking at the whole patient in a non-medical way."
"What this really is is a comfort massage," she said, and is not meant to substitute for massage given by physical therapists for specific ailments such as back pain. But this gentle massage technique can have great value. "There isn't any patient population that wouldn't benefit from it," she said.
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