PUbMed: National Library of Medicine
Introduction: The term "energy medicine" describes healing modalities that manipulate or channel purported subtle energies associated with the body. The objectives of this pilot study were to determine the feasibility of studying energy medicine for people with carpal tunnel pain and gathering relevant preliminary data.
Methods: Following a prospective, within-participant design, participants were recruited to experience a 30 min treatment from one of 17 energy medicine practitioners. Of 374 adults experiencing carpal tunnel pain who were screened for the study, 190 received an energy medicine treatment. Practitioners delivered treatments at close distance, some with and some without light, stationary touch. Outcome measures were collected before, during, and immediately after the treatment, and three weeks later. The primary outcome measure was self-reported pain. Secondary subjective measures included credibility regarding energy medicine and expectancy regarding the efficacy of treatments, pain interference, sleep quality, well-being, mood, and sense of personal transformation. Physiological measures included median nerve conduction velocity, heart rate variability, heart rate synchrony (between the participant and practitioner), and expression levels of neuroinflammation-related genes.
Results: On average, self-reported current pain scores decreased 2.0 points post-session and 1.3 points at three weeks compared to baseline values using a 0-10 point scale with 10 denoting worst pain (F(2, 565) = 3.82 p <0.000005). This effect was not influenced by the participants' level of expectancy or credibility regarding the energy medicine modality. Well-being, negative emotion, and sleep quality scores significantly improved at the follow-up visit. Multiple heart rate variability measures significantly changed reflecting increased parasympathetic activity which may indicate decreased stress. No other secondary outcome showed significant change.
Discussion: Studying the administration of energy medicine to people with carpal tunnel pain is feasible, although requiring a documented carpal tunnel syndrome diagnosis proved to be prohibitive for recruitment. Our finding of preliminary evidence for positive effects in pain and pain-related outcomes after a single session of energy medicine warrants further controlled investigation.
Dorothy: One 30 minute session can have an impact but as practitioners a first session should be 1 hour for any chronic disorder and to ease a new client into the process. Multiple sessions have the most efficacy with the second session often making more ground and gaining better and longer term results. These sessions are best carried out from 3days to weekly intervals and often with longer term incentives and a program pre agreed upon, the first 2 or 3 sessions can be carried out in the first week to build on work already done.
A case study of extended human capacity perception during Energy Medicine treatments using mixed methods analysis
To note, the modality reiki is commonly used simply because this article is American as are the authors. In many countries multiple modality attunments bring a favoured 'energy therapy' label to the table. Multi frequency training is still uncommon globally but will use this same non modality label.
Introduction: Some "energy medicine" modalities, such as Reiki, continue to show evidence for efficacy, but the underlying mechanisms of action are still uncertain. To help illuminate possible mechanisms, this exploratory mixed-method study using qualitative and quantitative analyses investigated: 1) How do energy medicine sessions function from the perspective of a seer, i.e., an individual trained in techniques to enable perception of purported subtle energies, and 2) Do any of these observations correlate with changes in participants' subjective pain?
Method: One seer reported observations during 30-minute energy medicine sessions delivered by 17 practitioners to participants experiencing chronic hand or wrist pain. Data were coded using an inductive approach, followed by thematic and descriptive analyses. Content analysis was used to assign whether each code was mentioned by the seer for each participant, generating 119 binary variables, one for each code. The relationship between these binary variables and change in participant pain scores after the energy medicine session and three weeks later were explored using linear regression models.
Results: The qualitative thematic analysis identified six major themes from the seer's notes: "Experience of the Practitioner," "Experience of the Participant," "Space and Other Beings" (referring to the qualities of the physical space the energy medicine session occurred in and ostensible non-physical beings present during session), "Participant-Practitioner Relationship," "Healing Process," and "Attributes of Energy." The energy medicine methods used varied for each participant, according to the practitioners' perceptions of each individual's needs. The linear regression models yielded significant associations between changes in pain scores and various codes, including energy color, practitioner touch and the presence of ostensible non-physical beings supporting the session, although their significance did not persist after correction for multiple comparisons.
Discussion: Future studies investigating the mechanisms of energy medicine may benefit from including perceptions by seers in their outcome measures.
Dorothy: it is common for those experiencing expansion techniques to have experiences during sessions while others just drift away after the first 15 minutes or so. Communication is part of the practice as is putting hands on rather than holding them off (reiki) as this is really a performance making the practitioner more important than the client, let's not do that. Psychologically/emotionally/well being, there is a lot of evidence that non invasive human touch is intrinsic to feeling cared for and has a direct influence on the state of mind and desire to heal.
National Institute of Health on Touch.
A prominent finding in the literature was the connections felt between the person giving and receiving touch. Themes described by patients include: presence in relationship,19 development of a positive relationship and feeling special,11 connection with the therapist,14 and a confirmation of caring.13 Cronfalk et al found contact between the therapist and the participant was a positive experience allowing feelings and moments of stillness.20 Nelson found a theme of reconnecting to life through caring, and that hospice residents “felt cared for by staff during and after the delivery of complementary therapies; the burden of disease (i.e., physical, emotional, spiritual distress) seemed less, allowing residents to ‘feel’ like they had more energy and a desire to participate in life”.19(p157) Dunwoody, Smyth and Davidson reported that recipients being treated for cancer described feelings of communication through touch, security, and empowerment
