We all know we’re going to die but that sure doesn’t make it easier. As a massage therapist and hospice volunteer, I believe that we can offer care to dying people that inspires grace and peace throughout the process of dying. Here’s how:

Physical Comfort

Aches and pains come with old age and as the body grows older, pain can become more prevalent. Massage and energy work can help relieve pain and help someone feel relaxed. It can benefit circulation and swelling (edema).

Loving Touch

Often someone approaching the end of their life may experience touch mostly from medical professionals . There can be a lot of transferring, taking vitals, needles, bathing, and other procedural care. This care often lacks compassion due to overworked staff. Simple compassionate touch can benefit physical and mental well-being significantly. Simple hand holding, applying lotion to hands and feet, a gentle foot or head rub are examples of this kind of touch. Touch without trying to fix or change something. Touch that is loving and intentional. Touch that expresses love, and tells the receiver’s body that it is safe, that he/she is loved, and that you are there with them.

Healing Presence

“You are the medicine” is something I tell myself every time I walk into a client or patient’s room. I am not going in to change or fix something. I am going to hold space, to be with someone where they are, to love and see them completely. I am not there to do. I am there to be with. Be with whatever he/she is experiencing. I leave my plans, my drama, my stresses and excitements in the car.

Therapeutic Tough

Massage for Palliative and Hospice patients can help relieve pain and anxiety. It can offer support that medical staff and even family can’t always offer. This undivided attention can help calm the patient and reduce fear. Loving and present touch is an essential part of one’s care plan. Of course there are considerations that must be made for clients experiencing severe conditions and specific illnesses where touch may not be permitted. It’s important to be knowledgable about the precautions and contraindications.

Craniosacral Therapy (CST) is a modality that leverages a gentle touch to access deep parts of our body, mind, and spirit. It’s no surprise that this modality really benefits senior clients and people in palliative and hospice care.

The following study can help us understand some of the benefits CST can have for elderly clients: GERIATRIC APPLICATIONS OF CRANIOSACRAL THERAPY: Established allied health professionals’ use of a complementary modality

Parkinson’s Disease

Patients with Parkinson’s disease who received Craniosacral Therapy reported a decrease in pain and improved comfort. They felt relaxed and experienced an improvement in mobility, balance, and expression. Though results were not permanent, the effects were positive and with continued treatments it’s possible that the benefits could have a longer lifespan. Cranioscral therapy lead to an improved sense of health and reduced rigidity in severely affected patients. Caregivers found that the decline of cognition, lucidity, and perception were slowed for those receiving CST which allowed longer time spent in community. Therapists noted improved passive range of motion, as well.

Post-Stroke and Transient Ischemic Attacks

Those who have suffered from a Stroke and received Craniosacral therapy in this stody reported improved movement, balance, communication, sleep, and digestion.

Gastrointestinal problems & dysphagia

Craniosacral therapy helped relieve digestive symptoms such as hiatal hernias, IBS, gastric reflux, and Crohn’s disease.

Nonspecific outcomes

Therapists noted that their patients, regardless of the presenting health concern, experienced consisten benefits in sleep, stress tolerance, energy, appetite, and focus. It helped clients to take longer, deeper breathes which can have profound effects on the body, mind, and spirit of clients. Clients had improved digestion, decreases in anxiety and depression, and felt an overall increase in general well-being.

Craniosacral Therapy can help treat or ease the symptoms of the following conditions:

• Alzheimer's disease

• autism

• back pain

• brain injury, TBI’s

• central nervous system disorders

• chronic fatigue

• colic

• concussion

• dementia

• fibromyalgia

• immune disorders

• learning disabilities

• migraines

• neck pain

• post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)

• scoliosis

• spinal cord injury

• stress

This list is provided by the Upledger Institute and is a partial list. If you’re wondering how CST can help you, contact me.

Craniosacral Therapy is a gentle healing modality that we attribute to Dr. Sutherland, an Osteopath from the early 1900’s. Though Dr. Sutherland and later, Dr. Upledger were major movers in developing and spreading this modality, cranial osteopathic medicine dates back thousands of years to cultures of Peru, China, and India.

Craniosacral therapy helps

Reiki is beneficial throughout life but also at this pivotal transition between life and death. 

Reiki reduces the anxiety and fear that can be associated with growing older or with a terminal diagnosis. This energy work can minimize the side effects of medications and medical procedures and promote an overall relaxation. Whether at home or in a facility the love and peace that Reiki inspires envelop a dying person and his/her family and encourage a sense of presence and compassion among those involved. Though this energy healing will not cure our client at this stage of life, and we are not always aware of its affect, the loving presence and healing touch in which Reiki is shared, can be deeply healing. 

Reiki allows us to better handle the uncertainty of life and death.  We can feel warm, loved, and connected to those around us and to ourselves. It helps us to lift our spirits and accept things as they are.