Complementary therapies

A 58-year-old gentleman presented to the complementary therapy service in January 2018 with left upper lobe mixed cell carcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma.  He was a smoker at this time but trying to give up.  He also presented with ischaemic heart disease, COPD and Hypercholesterolaemia.

Despite a cough he was fully active and was able to manage his chores and remain completely independent.  However his exercise was up and down with unstable angina, so some days walking up the stairs was fine, others this made him very breathless.

Up until diagnosis he had maintained a physical job as a gardener and handyman. He lives alone and has no children.

The patient commenced primary chemotherapy in January 2018 and between February and March 2018 he underwent concurrent chemo radiation at St James’ Hospital in Leeds.

In September 2018 a CT scan showed the disease to be stable.

The patient was referred to the complementary therapy service via the palliative care programme,Thinking Ahead, in October 2018.

He was complaining of anxiety, poor sleep and tightness in his shoulders and neck. The patient was very sceptical about complementary therapy treatments and thought he would just come the once to see what it was like, but had no expectations and didn’t usually like this kind of thing!

A MYCAW (Measure Your Concerns And Wellbeing) Tool was completed before and after four massage sessions to capture the impact of the intervention to the patient’s reported symptom symptoms and sense of wellbeing.
Markers were taken on a scale of 0-6, low numbers being best.

This patient scored as follows:

• Tightness in his shoulders and neck was scored as a 5 before and 1 after the four massages. (80 % improvement)
• Anxiety was scored as high as it can be, at 6 before and down to only a 1 after the massages. (83% improvement)
• His general feeling of wellbeing also improved from 3 to 1. (67% improvement)

The patient commented that the complementary therapy service was very helpful:

“I feel more relaxed, not as tight around my shoulders.  I am also sleeping much better than before and I am not as edgy as I was.  I go to bed at 9.15 and wake up at 6.45 and then can get up, having slept all night. I used to wake up three or four times a night.”

The patient was discharged quite well and happy, sleeping better and generally feeling much calmer, with his anxiety now well managed.  He was told he could be referred back into the service should he need to in the future.