Therapeutic Touch ~ evidence for effectiveness?

http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/article/2036-2523.html

Energy healing

Biofield, or energy healing, is described by its proponents as "one of the oldest forms of healing known to humankind."14 Theories related to this practice involve transfer of energy from healer to patient in unknown ways, either from a supernatural entity or by manipulating the body's own "energy fields." Over 25 terms are used in various cultures to describe this life force. Biofield practitioners incorporate a holistic focus into therapy, and promote their methods as useful for stress and general improvement of health; relief of pain, edema, and acceleration of wound and fracture healing; improvement in digestion, appetite, and various emotional states; and treatment of conditions such as eating disorders, irritable bowel syndrome, and pre-menstrual syndrome.

Some unique conditions are "diagnosed" by biofield practitioners, such as "accumulated tension" and "congested energy" that, when released, supposedly lead to improved health. A common form of this therapy is used by nurses, and is called "therapeutic touch." It involves moving the hands over (but not in direct contact with) the patient's body either to create a general state of well-being by enhancing "energy flow" in the subject, or to release "accumulated tension" and induce balance and harmony. At least one school of nursing has demanded that its faculty cease teaching these modalities as part of their curriculum (personal communication, John Renner, MD).

Therapies that combine manipulation and biofield therapy include "network chiropractic spinal analysis," which combines soft-tissue chiropractic and applications of the biofield, followed by conventional chiropractic treatment; "craniosacral therapy," an offshoot of osteopathic medicine involving manipulation of cranial and/or sacral bones to relieve "restrictions" in motion of these bones that are thought to help persons with seizures, immune disorders, learning disabilities, and assorted other conditions; and "polarity therapy," in which touch, energy field manipulation, and other modalities correct distortions in one's "energy anatomy."15
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This is one dangerous problem with "therapeutic touch". While it may be true that such attention to a patient may result in psychological benefits (in other words, a placebo effect), the practice is founded in unproven pseudoscientific religious beliefs. In short, it is basically 19th-century spiritualism. Because of this, TT is a direct contradiction to the proven science-based medical practices it is supposed to complement.

The practitioners of TT use the typical excuses we've heard from other panderers of the paranormal:

http://www.camline.org/therapiesPractitioners/therapeutic_touch/description.html

Some of the difficulty experienced in obtaining evidence of effect may relate to the fundamental philosophy of TT, of being partly a healing art as well as a science (34), with the implication that it's outcome is unpredictable (35). Proponents have suggested that there needs to be a different approach to assessing effect in a healing discipline such as TT (e.g. 7). However, TT needs more methodologically robust clinical trials showing effect on order to meet current standards for evidence-based practice.
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Some practitioners have speculated that it may be possible to "overload" a patient's energy field by too much treatment, potentially causing hyperactivity, irritability, increased pain or anxiety, and Kreiger has said that no session should be longer than 25 minutes (6, 36).
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Speculation. Excuses. Untestable hypotheses. Uniquely special easier conditions. Lack of definitive studies based on accepted standards of evidence. The same routine, over and over again.

These people have no business treating patients.
 
It would seem that Steve is going full steam right now. He cannot stop for even a second to answer some really important questions about the very serious allegations he has made.

Perhaps he thinks he can drown people with snippets from his beloved Google. Perhaps he thinks nobody will notice that he doesn't answer the questions.

Perhaps Steve also believes in fairytales...
 
Jeff Corey said:


That pretty much says it all. Another way of putting it would be, "The results were not statistically significant. Outcomes varied randomly."
But that would have been in a real journal, such as JAMA.
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And what dream world do you live in? DO you believe that conventional medicine does NOT have adverse and variable outcomes as well? Do you think conventional medicine wins them all?

I am afraid there are a lot of people whose bodies are in cemetaries who, if they wanted to, could testify to the reality of that. This is not an excuse, it is reality.
 
SteveGrenard said:
And what dream world do you live in? DO you not believe that conventional medicine does not have adverse and variable outcomes as well? Do you think conventional medicine wins them all?
I am afraid there are a lot of people whose bodies are in cemetaries who, if they wanted to, could testify otherwise.
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Yes, people have died from conventional medicine. Drugs have been removed from the market; pharmaceutical companies have had to pay huge settlements; doctors have killed people by making mistakes; and so it goes. So-called alternative medicine has its share of directly-attributable deaths, too.

Conventional medicine must show safety and efficacy through exhaustive clinical trials. Effects must be shown to be consistently statistically significant; they must be replicable; the studies must adhere to accepted standards of evidence; otherwise, it just won't wash.

Now, where's the properly-conducted, randomized, double-blind, clinical evidence that TT works as advertised? No anecdotes, please.
 
Originally posted by SteveGrenard
"The following message validates my remarks about Larry Sarner (Emily's step-father's position as well as James Randi' s upcoming role at the time ; Randi also published on this in the J Nurse Practitioner). Read this very carefully. Especially the part where he says he wants applicants that show it doesn't work. This is why laypersons who are not medical scientists or nurses should probaby stay out of this..."

Who says he wants applicants who show it doesn't work? Randi?
And if you think that I, who is neither a medical scientist nor a nurse, couldn't test to see if these "experienced practitioners" can detect an energy field around a human body, then you are hopelessly naive.
The reason Emily was able to do the original experiment was that these TT people agreed to be tested by a nine year old. No one who makes those claims around here was willing to be tested by NYASk.
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Corey .... GO BACk. Read down a bit in Sarner's post and then tell me what it says. Do I have to be redundent and re-quote it here?
 
Okay Corey here it is, cut and pasted from the previous page:


Larry Sarner writes:
Please publicly state, in clear and unambiguous terms, ANY objectively
observable evidence which would convince you that Therapeutic Touch is NOT
a real phenomenon, or that it can NOT be practiced by living human beings.
Then you, I, Emily, mutually acceptable outside scientists, and perhaps
even James Randi, within the limits of our financial resources, will
devise, conduct, and objectively report the results of an experiment to
obtain such evidence.
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Steve,

All Sarner is doing is challenging TT practitioners to say what evidence would falsify their belief.
If there is such evidence then appropriate experiments can be devised.
I would add - if there is no such evidence then TT is an unscientific, faith-based process.


Please answer my earlier question -

"If TT practitioners can't detect a so-called energy field, how can they perform a "baseline assessment" of it?"
 
I agree their ability to diagnose is dubious with variable outcomes. I personally do not accept this. I believe that palpation can be used to diagnose some conditions when performed by a properly trained person (physician, nurse, physician's assistant, registered nurse practitioner, respiratory therapist).

Are you now denying the use of touch/palpation as a diagnosic tool? Tapping the chest and belly with ones fingers also reveals the presence of masses or air. Are you denying this is not useful? Personally, and I have never said otherwise, and I have reiterated this over and over again (irrespective of what Krieger and her friends say) that diagnosis and treatment are separate modalities.

I look at the term Therapeutic Touch by its strict definitional status:

Therapeutic = treatment

Touch = actually touching the subject

Linda Rosa's study was testing a different claim, the diagnostic portion and assigning the results to the entire field. As Cox stated it decontextualizes the subject. It was done with a single subject: Emily Rosa, a healthy child who was not a patient, had no abnormal conditions involving her hands and therefore was a baseline against which there was no variation to detect. Stop and think about that flaw in the design of this study.

The issue to disprove or prove, falsify or not, is whether these persons can meet the burden of their claim which is that they effect relief in a subject by touching them. There are 454 citations in Medline so it will take me a week to study each of the abstracts carefully. So far I have found studies which falsify TT as well as validate it. I am discarding rhetorical responses, opinion pieces and articles which are not controled studies. We are back to the same you said-she said-they said argument we had over homeopathy. There are both pro and con studies.

Bottom line, it is I agree important that any modalities such as TT or homeopathy are not used to the exclusion of conventional treatment (which sorta makes it impossible to validate them insofar as outcomes are concerned -- so you have to design studies using conventional therapy with and without the complementary ones and see which group does better...which then leaves you open to false or real assertions of a placebo effect since it would be impossible for a test subject to not know they are being touched).

I also stated, repeatedly, that I believe that advances in sensor technology will do far more to diagnose problems manifesting alterations in the biofield
than any human could do. In otherwords, handheld scanners a la Star Trek are probably not so far off.
We already have non-invasive technologies that measure oxygen saturations (in the blood but without blood), CO2 levels in the blood (but without blood) and even cutaneous electrodes that measure blood pH but without blood). Extending such technologies to EEG, ECG and EMG morphologies will be the next baby step in that direction. Linking biofield changes to actual confirmed diagnoses, including those unearthed at autopsy, will be a means to validate the technologies that detect and illustrate the biofield potentials.
 
Steve,

So, we are now to accept your definition of Therapeutic Touch?
A definition completely at odds with that of the body established by the inventor of TT?
Read the link I posted earlier -" Hands are usually held about 2-4 inches away from the individual’s body and are moved in a head to feet direction." No mention of palpitation in their procedure.

In your words
There are both pro and con studies.
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- so post a link to just one pro-TT study (preferably double-blind randomised, controlled and peer-reviewed).

Oh, and stop blathering as in your last paragraph.
 
hehehehe.... not very surprising really. Steve gets called on some absurdity, and he responds with villification, conspiracy theories (Emily's mom planed it all I tell you!!) slander, attributing motives and actions that he can in no way support. Oh and of course ignoring any real pertinant questions or evidence.

Seen it before, just as how he claims Randi cheats on his challenge, but when pressed ends up spewing a bunch of nonsence and backing up to the statement he is sure Randi would cheat if anyone passed the preliminary test.

Kudos to those who have the patience to actuall read all of his excuses and diversions.
 
Marc said:
hehehehe.... not very surprising really. Steve gets called on some absurdity, and he responds with villification, conspiracy theories (Emily's mom planed it all I tell you!!) slander, attributing motives and actions that he can in no way support. Oh and of course ignoring any real pertinant questions or evidence.

Seen it before, just as how he claims Randi cheats on his challenge, but when pressed ends up spewing a bunch of nonsence and backing up to the statement he is sure Randi would cheat if anyone passed the preliminary test.

Kudos to those who have the patience to actuall read all of his excuses and diversions.
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Someday, somebody is going to write a book about Steve Grenard. There is plenty of material for even the most ridiculous National Enquirer-style story....
 
Let's make one thing clear: I am not refuting the person (Krieger) who you credit with founding TT. Other authors have done so when they refuted Rosa's study. I am presenting their arguments. Also let's get something else clear: Krieger, regardless of what your reference asserts (which is from her own writings I guess oh, no, the AMA, of course) is certainly not the person who first discovered this or established a protcool. As we have read elsewhere the claim has been around for hundreds, no, thousands of years and long before Krieger got involved.

This is not my definition. It belongs in any dictionary. Look up therapeutic and touch.

I am not here to defend Krieger or discredit her. She is entitled to say what she wants. The Linda and Emily mom and daughter TT study did not, for the last time, touch on (pun intended) either therapy or touch! It was a farce of the highest order and how the skeptics, in their scramble to promote it, overlooked such a basic error is beyond me. But why should we not be surprised? The study should have been titled "Detection of the Biofield through at a Distance by Human Practitioners." Results: 50% got it, 50% of the trials didn't. Exactly chance. Since Rosa mom mislabeled the title of the study, she loses all credibility with me. Exactly chance. One or two trials could have been fudged t bring it down to that. Who oversaw this experiment? Where was it conducted? What scientists supervised it? Or was it just a presentation at a science fair? Who were the practitioners that were impeached and why haven't we had any feedback from them? Did some practitioners have higher scores than others? This would be VERY important. Hard questions for Linda Rosa. Why do some critics think she will never answer all of them. Well she hasnt answered any of them.

This study was a scam from a mom who is a vocal and active member of the Rocky Mtns Skeptics and her own health quackwatch group. She perceived a lot of problems in Colorado, especially with the birthing therapists and the death of an autistic child (Candace) there. She overlooked the fact that medical errors kill many more people than birthing therapy (but the culprits do not go to jail, they get sued and get off any criminal liability). I am not saying this wasn't a tragic ocurrence, but clearly she feels it is necessary to fight her perception of quackery by any means possible. It is dishonest. Period. I said it before, I will say it again. Her study was a misnomer, a scam and a poor example for skeptics to hang their hat on. Give me a week and I will select out of the 454 citations both pro and con studies to back up the fact that TT, true TT therapeutic + touch, is still not a complete fraud. There are 50K nurses in a health care environment doing this in the US alone. I guess that really annoys Linda Rosa. And nobody has died from it.
 
The Linda and Emily mom and daughter TT study did not, for the last time, touch on (pun intended) either therapy or touch! It was a farce of the highest order and how the skeptics, in their scramble to promote it, overlooked such a basic error is beyond me.
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An "error" also apparently overlooked by the TT practitioners who took part in the study.

They claimed that they could detect the "energy field".
They agreed to the test.
They performed no better than chance.
Your attempt to use Linda Rosa's membership of a quackwatch group as a refutation of the test is a pathetic argumentum ad hominem.

The clock is ticking on you presenting a reputable study supportive of TT.
 
CFLarsen said:


Someday, somebody is going to write a book about Steve Grenard. There is plenty of material for even the most ridiculous National Enquirer-style story....
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They already have. It's called the DSM-III.

:D :D :D
 
This is an ad hominem of the worst kind and I am reporting it to the moderator. Please delete this reference at once.

You see Yahzi and that goes for Larsen's quote as well, if people can't post here for fear of these kinds of attacks, it certainly limits discourse here as Ed is trying to do with his thread on references. I do believe I am dealing with the worst kind of bigotry when we see posts like this. What do others think?

Thank you.
 
Steve,

Let's make one thing clear: Nobody gives a flying fig about you "presenting" anybody's arguments. We are old and wise enough to use Google. And I sincerely hope that the people in question do not need you to present their arguments, because you do them much disservice, by screwing up so royally every bleedin' time!

If you want to argue a point, do it from you own point of view. Argue your own case, not somebody else's.

You raise more accusations than you are willing to prove. Steve, you are getting out of control.

This thread is a keeper. Don't post anything you will later regret. There's plenty already.
 
SteveGrenard said:
This is an ad hominem of the worst kind and I am reporting it to the moderator. Please delete this reference at once.

You see Yahzi and that goes for Larsen's quote as well, if people can't post here for fear of these kinds of attacks, it certainly limits discourse here as Ed is trying to do with his thread on references. I do believe I am dealing with the worst kind of bigotry when we see posts like this. What do others think?

Thank you.
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Steve,

If it is any consolation, I haven't a clue what Yahzi is talking about. Still, since you have requested the deletion of his post, I have saved it for posterity.
 
This thread has been reported, I've read it, and I'm going to say right here and now that I am not going to moderate catfights. I don't see anything here that has violated any of the rules.

I am not going to delete any posts.

My decision, of course, can be appealed to the administrators.

edited to add: For those who may not know, the DSM-III is the
third edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Referring to it as a book about Steve Grenard is of course a base insult. A cheap shot, certainly, but not a rule violation.
 
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