Holistic Care for Hospice

Massage Therapy

Massage therapy can be relaxing and comforting for most people, but hospice patients can benefit the most from this form of treatment. Massage has been proven to provide significant improvement for pain, anxiety, and health-related quality of life for those who need help managing their pain.

Holistic care is a unique offering that combines traditional treatments with alternative therapies to treat the whole person—their mind, body, and spirit. Often, patients with terminal illnesses are confined to a bed and have sleeping, pain, anxiety, and depression issues. Massage therapy can be used as a tool to help ease those issues for them.

While you may see your massage therapist for a deep tissue massage, massage for hospice patients looks very different, and the goal is to relieve pain through geriatric massage techniques. When muscles are stimulated through massage, it can induce relaxation, calmness and even help promote oxygen in the tissues, which may help ease pain. Massage therapy for hospice patients is different from the standard approach and will vary by patient. The session is customized for each patient and ranges from a gentle foot massage to a full lymphatic drainage massage, depending on their needs and tolerance.

In addition to the physical pain relief that can be achieved with manual massage, patients often leave their sessions with a reduced feeling of anxiety and an overall sense of wellbeing. Massage can offer a healing presence at a time when it is needed most. At Journey Hospice, all holistic care is coordinated by a specially trained registered nurse and is performed by Journey’s caring and attentive team. The result is a complementary course of treatment specifically intended to relieve the individual patient’s symptoms.