Healing touch, music, aids heart surgery patients

By Alison McCook

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – People who learned about
relaxed breathing and received soothing touch and music before
heart surgery were more likely to be alive 6 months after the
procedure, suggesting that these additional steps help speed
recovery, according to a study released today.

People who were prayed for off-site, however, fared no
better after their heart procedures, according to a report in
The Lancet.

Study author Dr. Mitchell W. Krucoff told Reuters Health
that this study is an “early step,” and researchers still have
a lot to learn about how to integrate high-tech approaches to
medicine with “the rest of the human being.”

“This is not ‘God failed the test,’ or ‘God passed the
test,”‘ Krucoff, from Duke University in Durham, North
Carolina, told Reuters Health. “It’s way too early.”

During the study, Krucoff and his colleagues assigned 748
patients undergoing heart surgery to receive either off-site
prayer from congregations of various religions, or music,
imagery and touch therapy, also called MIT, or no intervention.
Patients did not know if they were being prayed for.

Before surgery, as part of MIT, people trained in “healing
touch” put their hands in specific places on patients’ bodies,
designed to shift energy around the body and promote healing.
Patients also listened to their choice of soothing music, which
included approximately 10 minutes of guided imagery. They
learned about deep breathing, which they were told to continue
during the procedure, for which they were awake.

People who were prayed for appeared to fare no better after
the heart procedure, and neither prayer nor MIT therapy had any
effect on patients’ risk of in-hospital heart events or
readmission to the hospital within 6 months.

However, those who received MIT were 65 percent less likely
to die within the following 6 months than people who did not
receive the intervention.

In addition, MIT-users experienced a “profound” decrease in
emotional distress before the procedure, relative to
non-MIT-users, Krucoff said in an interview.

Previous research shows that stress can increase
inflammation throughout the body, which can interfere with
healing after heart surgery, Krucoff noted. It’s possible that,
by reducing patients’ anxieties about surgery, MIT assists in
their recovery, he added.

In addition, patients given MIT may simply feel more cared
for when they receive extra attention from the music, touching
and imagery, and that may help in their recovery, Krucoff
noted.

“We have no idea what mechanisms are there,” he said.

In an accompanying editorial, the journal notes that
studying prayer and alternative therapies “are proper subjects
for science, even while transcending its known bounds.”

SOURCE: The Lancet, July 16, 2005.