Haematological indicators of complementary healing intervention

Enhanced coherence within the theta band between pairs of brains engaging in experienced versus naïve Reiki procedures

OBJECTIVES

The study objective was to discern whether the coherence between brain activities of the "patient" and practitioner differ between Reiki experts and novices.

RATIONALE

If the physical process associated with Reiki involves "convergence" between the practitioner and subject, then this congruence should be evident in time-dependent shared power within specific and meaningful frequency electroencephalographic bands.

DESIGN

Simultaneous quantitative electroencephalogram measures (19 channels) were recorded from 9 pairs of subjects when 1 of the pairs was an experienced Reiki practitioner or had just been shown the procedure. Pairs recorded their experiences and images.

SETTING/LOCATION

The "practitioner" and "patient" pairs were measured within a quiet, comfortable acoustic chamber.

OUTCOME MEASURES

Real-time correlations and coherence between pairs of brains for power (μV(2)·Hz(-1)) within the various frequency bands over the 10-min sessions were recorded and analyzed for each pair. Descriptors of experiences were analyzed for word meanings.

RESULTS

Only the coherence within the theta range increased over time between the brains of the Reiki pairs relative to the Sham pairs, particularly over the left hemisphere. The pleasantness-unpleasantness rating for the words employed to describe experiences written after the experiment were more congruent for the Reiki pairs compared to the reference pairs.

CONCLUSIONS

The increased synchronization of the cerebral activity of the participant and the practitioner during proximal therapies involving touch such as Reiki may be an important component of any subsequent beneficial effects.

Biofield therapies in cardiovascular disease management: a brief review

Though there have been advances over the last 30 years in the therapeutic approaches to cardiovascular disease (CVD), heart disease and stroke remain the leading cause of mortality and morbidity worldwide. Many medical therapies for CVD are associated with a number of side effects, often leading patients to seek non-pharmacological treatments to complement standard care. Referred to as complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), these therapies consist of a heterogeneous group of modalities used in addition to conventional health care. Biofield therapies exist within this CAM domain and involve the direction of healing energy to facilitate general health and well-being by modifying the energy field. What follows is a brief overview of three biofield therapies developed or used within the field of nursing (Therapeutic Touch, Reiki, and Healing Touch), surveying the use of these interventions for individuals with CVD, and outcomes that may impact CVD risk factors and health-related quality of life.

A randomised controlled single-blind trial of the efficacy of reiki at benefitting mood and well-being

This is a constructive replication of a previous trial conducted by Bowden et al. (2010), where students who had received Reiki demonstrated greater health and mood benefits than those who received no Reiki. The current study examined impact on anxiety/depression. 40 university students—half with high depression and/or anxiety and half with low depression and/or anxiety—were randomly assigned to receive Reiki or to a non-Reiki control group. Participants experienced six 30-minute sessions over a period of two to eight weeks, where they were blind to whether noncontact Reiki was administered as their attention was absorbed in a guided relaxation. The efficacy of the intervention was assessed pre-post intervention and at five-week follow-up by self-report measures of mood, illness symptoms, and sleep. The participants with high anxiety and/or depression who received Reiki showed a progressive improvement in overall mood, which was significantly better at five-week follow-up, while no change was seen in the controls. While the Reiki group did not demonstrate the comparatively greater reduction in symptoms of illness seen in our earlier study, the findings of both studies suggest that Reiki may benefit mood.

Effect of Reiki treatments on functional recovery in patients in poststroke rehabilitation: a pilot study

OBJECTIVES

The three objectives of this study were: (1) to evaluate the effectiveness of Reiki as an adjunctive treatment for patients with subacute stroke who were receiving standard rehabilitation as inpatients, (2) to evaluate a double-blinded procedure for training Reiki practitioners, and (3) to determine whether or not double-blinded Reiki and sham practitioners could determine which category they were in.

DESIGN

A modified double-blinded, placebo-controlled clinical trial with an additional historic control condition.

SETTING

The stroke unit of a major rehabilitation hospital.

SUBJECTS

Fifty (50) inpatients with subacute ischemic stroke, 31 male and 19 female.

INTERVENTIONS

There were four conditions: Reiki master, Reiki practitioner, sham Reiki, and no treatment (historic control). Subjects received up to 10 treatments over a 2(1/2)-week period in addition to standard rehabilitation.

OUTCOME MEASURES

Functional independence measure (FIM), and Center for Epidemiologic Studies--Depression (CES-D) measure.

RESULTS

No effects of Reiki were found on the FIM or CES-D, although typical effects as a result of age, gender, and time in rehabilitation were detected. Blinded practitioners (sham or reiki) were unable to determine which category they were in. Sham Reiki practitioners reported greater frequency of feeling heat in the hands compared to Reiki practitioners. There was no reported difference between the sham and the real Reiki practitioners in their ability to feel energy flowing through their hands. Post hoc analyses suggested that Reiki may have had limited effects on mood and energy levels.

CONCLUSION

Reiki did not have any clinically useful effect on stroke recovery in subacute hospitalized patients receiving standard-of-care rehabilitation therapy. Selective positive effects on mood and energy were not the result of attentional or placebo effects.

Reiki: A Complementary Therapy for Nursing Practice

1. Reiki is an ancient healing art involving the gentle laying on of hands. It can be practiced anytime and anywhere. 2. Reiki can be used as a complementary treatment to medical protocols. 3. Hand positions customarily correspond to the body's endocrine and lymphatic systems and major organs, focusing on seven main chakras. 4. More research investigating the effects of Reiki on persons with psychiatric and medical disorders is necessary.

Healing as a therapy for human disease: a systematic review

OBJECTIVE

To assess, from published clinical trials, the evidence for the use of healing as a complementary medical intervention in human disease.

DESIGN

Limited to studies involving random assignment to a treatment group consisting of "healing," broadly defined, or to a concurrent control group. All randomized trials published up to the year 2000, were identified from MEDLINE, CINAHL, BIDS-EMBASE, the CISCOM complementary medicine databases and from bibliographic references of published articles. Copies of all published studies were obtained, data were extracted, and methodological quality (Jadad) scores were derived where possible.

RESULTS

Fifty-nine randomized clinical trials (RCTs) were found comparing healing with a control intervention on human participants. In 37 of these, healing was used for existing diseases or symptoms (22 existed as fully accessible published reports, 10 as dissertation abstracts only, and 5 as "preliminary" investigations with limited evidential value). The 22 full trials (10 reporting a "significant" effect of healing compared with control) constitute an extremely heterogeneous group, varying greatly in the method and duration of healing; the medical condition treated; the outcome measure employed; and the control intervention used. Many trials had a number of methodological shortcomings, including small sample sizes, and were inadequately reported. Only 8 studies (5 with a significant outcome for healing) had a maximum methodological quality score of 5, and in 10 studies this score was 3 or less. Two trials-both large scale and methodologically sound-were replicates, and each found a significant beneficial effect of intercessory prayer on the clinical progress of cardiac patients. Eleven of the 15 dissertation abstracts and pilot studies reported nonsignificant results for healing compared with control, a finding that probably reflects the relatively small sample sizes and the likelihood of type II errors. The significant heterogeneity found in this group of trials makes categorization problematic and inhibits the pooling of results by meta-analysis or similar techniques to obtain a global estimate of the "treatment effect" of healing.

CONCLUSIONS

No firm conclusions about the efficacy or inefficacy of healing can be drawn from this diverse group of RCTs. Given the current emphasis on evidence-based medicine, future investigations should be adequately powered, appropriately controlled, and properly described. These future investigations would most usefully consist of: (1) pragmatic trials of healing for undifferentiated conditions on patients based in general practice and (2) larger RCTs of distant healing on large numbers of patients with well-defined measurable illness.

The empowering nature of Reiki as a complementary therapy

Reiki is an ancient healing method with roots in both Chinese Medicine and Christian healing. It is a treatment used by individuals as an alternative and complement to Western medical treatment. Reiki has increased in popularity over the past decade, but remains understudied. Methodological and philosophical reasons for why it is difficult to conduct research on the efficacy of Reiki are discussed. The reasons for the increased success of Reiki as an alternative and complementary healing method in the Western world are addressed, as well as the practice of Reiki as a healing method for self and others.

Healing touch: applications in the acute care setting

Nursing has been dedicated throughout its history to addressing the physical, psychologic, and spiritual aspects of the patient that influence the healing process. Current nursing practice in acute care is focused increasingly on monitoring equipment, giving medications, and administering medical treatments in a fast-paced environment that affords few opportunities for the deeper human connectedness between the nurse and the one who is ill and suffering. Healing touch (HT) is an energy-based complementary therapy fostering that nurse-patient connection. Nurses are beginning to use HT with their patients to assist in easing pain and anxiety, promote relaxation, accelerate wound healing, diminish depression, and increase a patient's sense of well-being. This article reports a conceptual framework for use of HT in acute care settings, describes specific HT techniques, and reviews numerous studies that have reported positive outcomes of HT as a noninvasive complementary therapy.

Multisite surface electromyography and complementary healing intervention: a comparative analysis

A comparative analysis was conducted on a series of three experimental studies that examined the effect of various local and nonlocal (distant) complementary healing methods on multisite surface electromyographic (sEMG) and autonomic measures. The series concentrated sEMG electrode placement on specific neuromuscular paraspinal centers (cervical [C4], thoracic [T6], and lumbar [L3]), along with the frontalis region, due to the fact that these sites corresponded to the location of individual chakra centers as delineated in ancient Eastern medical and philosophical texts. It was hypothesized that the sEMG assessment procedure had the potential to provide objective, quantifiable correlates for complementary healing treatment effects, as well as assess the energy flow through the chakras during a healing treatment. The studies were the first of their kind to incorporate randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled protocols in order to evaluate correlative neuromuscular multisite sEMG paraspinal measures with different complementary healing treatment interventions. Although the measurement protocols were similar between experiments, the results, demonstrated by the individual studies, varied. Whereas the overall findings of the series are encouraging because they indicate a potential objective scientific correlate to complementary healing treatment intervention, the results are considered preliminary in nature and appear to be linked to either the meditational experience of the subjects or dependent on the particular healer(s) used. Additional research is needed in order to establish the multisite sEMG assessment procedure as a reliable correlative measure for complementary healing treatment effects and to determine whether a consistent replicative treatment effect can be demonstrated independent of the specific subject population or practitioner(s) used.

Wound healing and complementary therapies: a review

A series of five innovative experiments conducted by Wirth et al. which examined the effect of various complementary healing interventions on the reepithelialization rate of full thickness human dermal wounds was assessed as to specific methodological and related factors. The treatment interventions utilized in the series included experimental derivatives of the Therapeutic Touch (TT), Reiki, LeShan, and Intercessory Prayer techniques. The results of the series indicated statistical significance for the initial two experiments and nonsignificance or reverse significance for the remaining three studies. This review article examines the methodological designs of the series of studies, along with the TT practitioners' phenomenologically based journal reports, to provide potential contributing correlative factors for the differential results obtained. These factors include: (1) methodological design restrictions, (2) a transference/inhibitory effect (3) the influence of experimental assistants, (4) healer visualization /imagery techniques, (5) variations in subject populations, and (6) a potential cancellation effect. While the placebo controlled double-blind methodological designs used in the series were as stringent as those used in other fields of scientific inquiry, the overall results of the experiments were inconclusive in establishing the efficacy of the treatment interventions for accelerating the rate of reepithelialization of full thickness dermal wounds.

Multisite electromyographic analysis of therapeutic touch and qigong therapy

The influence of complementary healing treatment on paraspinal electromagnetic activity at specific neuromuscular sites was examined in an exploratory pilot study that used a multisite surface electromyographic (sEMG) assessment procedure. The study was a replication and extension of previous research that indicated that complementary healing had a significant effect in normalizing the activity of the "end organ" for the central nervous system (CNS). Multisite sEMG electrodes were placed on the frontalis, cervical (C4), thoracic (T6), and lumbosacral (L3) paraspinals of 44 subjects who were divided into three groups: (1) students/patients of a Qigong practitioner (n = 16); (2) students/patients of a therapeutic touch (TT) practitioner (n = 14); and (3) nonbelievers in complementary healing (n = 14). A traditional ABAC experimental design was used with each subject evaluated for one 20-minute session that included four 5-minute segments. The purpose of this study was to measure the variable energizing effect of Qigong therapy along with the anecdotally and experimentally established relaxation effect of TT therapy relative to patient belief and expectancy. Treatment sessions consisted of Qigong and a modified form of TT intervention for all three groups. Due to the double-blind nature of the study, however, group 1 subjects were aware of only the Qigong intervention; group 2 subjects were aware of only the TT intervention, and group 3 subjects were informed that the study was designed to assess the neuromuscular activity of individuals in a seated position. The results indicated a statistically significant rise in electromagnetic activity for group 1 during the Qigong intervention segment (p < .024). Group 2 demonstrated a modest although overall nonsignificant decrease in multisite sEMG levels for both treatment protocols, whereas group 3 exhibited relatively consistent neuromuscular activity for both control and treatment segments. The results of this study are considered preliminary in nature, however, due to the potential influence of several confounds including psychophysiological factors, established behavior patterns, and the possibility for information transfer due to sensory cues.