According to a recent study, gentle massage therapy shows some promise for easing dementia patients’ agitation and anxiety.
In a review of 2 trials, Danish researchers found that gentle hand massage helped calm a dementia patient’s agitation levels, and a gentle touch and verbal encouragement at meal time improved their food intake.
The findings suggest that human touch can help agitation, anxiety and other behavioral and emotional problems that are associated with Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia.
The behavioral and emotional effects of dementia that include difficulty with eating and bathing, wandering, anxiety, confusion and agitation pose a challenge for care-takers, and therefore there is a growing interest in whether therapeutic touch can bring some short-term relief to these patients.
The two studies were conducted on a total of 110 nursing home residents suffering from dementia. In one study, the researchers used gentle touch and verbal encouragement to make them calm at meal time. In the second study, it was found that hand massage, with or without some calming music, helped soothe the agitation levels of dementia patients for a short period of time.
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