Therapeutic Touch and Health

However, therapeutic touch works through relaxing the body, minimizing the anxieties, reducing the pain in the patient’s body, and facilitates the healing processes of a patient after some treatment such as surgery. It is argued that the technique was developed in the early seventies during the time of nursing practitioners with intuitive abilities (Jett, 2015). The practitioner passes his/her hand on the patient but does not make the physical contact with the patient’s body. To complete the energy field balance, the therapist passes the hands at an approximate range of four to five centimeters far from the patient skin; this is done by first starting from the skin with the hands on the layer of a spinal column. The head follows afterward in assessing the front and back at the same time distancing away from the energy periphery field.

The recent study by the American Nursing Association has indicated that the energy imbalances and the disruption of the energy flow that affects the individual's health are a result of the mental and spiritual disharmony. The technique has the basis on the assumptions that energy-related fields in the human body are as the result of the ability that healing is a natural thing. Therapeutic touch is widely taught in the healthcare schools and universities where the technique is positively accepted in the hospitals. This technique implies both the substantial foundation form and research in the clinical field by improving the healing processes of the patient. The method is effective especially for the patients who have undergone surgical operations to relieve their pain when the other methods fail.

The technique works effectively since the therapist is able to experience the body changes of the patient such as warmth, feelings, coldness, body shocks and even congestion. Practitioners and nurses are able to use these body feelings in determining energy field imbalance of the patients. All these changes are attained by the therapist by unraveling the patterns of the energy fields through a repeated process by the use of hands in making four phases where the patient pain is believed to be lowered. The research showed that the technique is important as a pain reliever, lowered agitation, improved appetite, mental health, and energy management. Significant effects of therapeutic touch include the body relaxation and increasing the healing of the patient’s wound (Zolfaghari, Eybposh & Hazrati, 2012).

The patients are expected to be free in expressing their illness so that the nurses are able to deliver the right healing (Jett, 2015). Therapeutic touch stimulates the healing of the following health conditions: anxiety disorders, thyroid problems, sclerosis, and cancer problems. The technique is used with other medical combinations in treating the illness such as thyroid in the hospitals. Therapeutic touch assists the patients with dementia to be healed through touching their neck and shoulders for three days and twice daily as a routine checkup. Research indicated that patients suffering from anxiety should seek advice from the physician and consultation before undergoing the treatment so as to avoid restlessness during the treatment. , Wada, N. , Loo, K. K. , Higashimoto, Y. , & Fukuda, K.