Pain is a common symptom of cancer and side effect of cancer
treatment, and treating cancer-related pain is often a challenge for health
care providers.
The Penny George Institute for Health and Healing researchers found
that integrative medicine therapies can substantially decrease pain and anxiety
for hospitalized cancer patients. Their findings are published in the current
issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute Monographs.
"Following Integrative medicine interventions, such as medical
massage, acupuncture, guided imagery or relaxation response intervention,
cancer patients experienced a reduction in pain by an average of 47 percent and
anxiety by 56 percent," said Jill Johnson, Ph.D., M.P.H., lead author and
Senior Scientific Advisor at the Penny George Institute.
"The size of these reductions is clinically important, because
theoretically, these therapies can be as effective as medications, which is the
next step of our research," said Jeffery Dusek, Ph.D., senior author and
Research Director for the Penny George Institute.
The Penny George Institute receives funding from the National Center
of Alternative and Complementary Medicine of the National Institutes of Health
to study the impact of integrative therapies on pain over many hours as well as
over the course of a patient's entire hospital stay.
"The overall goal of this research is to determine how
integrative services can be used with or instead of narcotic medications to
control pain," Johnson said.
Researchers looked at electronic medical records from admissions at
Abbott Northwestern Hospital between July 1, 2009 and December 31, 2012. From
more than ten thousand admissions, researchers identified 1,833 in which cancer
patients received integrative medicine services.
Patients were asked to report their pain and anxiety before and just
after the integrative medicine intervention, which averaged 30 minutes in
duration.
Patients being treated for lung, bronchus, and trachea cancers showed
the largest percentage decrease in pain (51 percent). Patients with prostate
cancer reported the largest percentage decrease in anxiety (64 percent).
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