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This article is from the WebMD News Archive
Relaxation Technique Cuts Time and Cost
Dec. 1, 1999 (Chicago) -- Doctors at Harvard's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center are tapping into patients' ability to find comfort in the subconscious before tapping into their veins with catheters, and this "new age" approach is winning enthusiasts among both patients and staff.
Elvira V. Lang, MD, associate professor of radiology and medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston, reported a study of self-hypnosis techniques at the 85th Scientific Assembly and Annual Meeting of the Radiological Society of North America. Although her study included only 161 patients who were offered the hypnosis relaxation approach, she says that by early next year, all patients undergoing procedures in the catheterization lab at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center will have the option of using hypnosis to either replace or supplement traditional conscious sedation. Conscious sedation usually consists of the patient receiving one or more drugs that aid in anxiety and pain relief.
Lang tells WebMD that by using hypnotic relaxation -- basically, using a set script to lead a patient into deep relaxation by suggesting that the patient "concentrate on the sensation of floating and float to some place comfortable" -- her hospital saves more than $100 on each procedure, a potential annual savings of $1 million. The hospital is so enthusiastic that "we are currently training our entire team in the technique." She says that care nurses and technicians require about 32 hours of training. She has worked "five years to develop our standard script, and it hasn't failed us yet."
In her study, the technique was offered to 161 patients undergoing angiography, angioplasty, or kidney drainage, but she says that it can be used with any catheter-based procedure in which conscious sedation is used. "Use of the hypnotic procedure cut procedure time from 78 minutes for our standard care group to an average of 61 minutes for the hypnosis group," she says.
According to Lang, patients who undergo the technique can still receive both pain and anxiety medications and are given a bell to signal when they want to receive medication. Patients who underwent the procedures without hypnosis used "an average of 1.9 units of drugs, compared to an average drug use of 0.9 units for patients using hypnosis."
Of the 161 patients in the study, 79 patients did not undergo relaxation techniques; 82 did opt for the relaxation approach. "Forty-six percent of the patients using hypnosis used no conscious sedation, while only 18% of the patients in the standard treatment group requested no sedation," she says.
She says that patients each select a "familiar comfortable place. ... Many chose settings in nature, but one woman said she went home to can vegetables. Another woman said she sat on the clouds with her deceased relatives and floated around touring the country."
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