stroke and touching

I promised a separate post on touch. This is the first but won’t be the last.

I am totally amazed that touch is not a HUGE part of stroke therapy. The therapists follow the western medicine rule books and move the leg this way and that, and make your arm exercise this way or that. But they rarely TOUCH.  Instead, medicine is conducted in a techtronic way… You get your meds, you get your food, you get your workout. But never ever touched. It is inhuman. And stupid. And counterproductive.

A stroke is about the rewiring of the brain. Sensation – if the patient has any or the potential to have any – is a powerful tool in rewiring. Even the holding of hands can be theraputic in the real, actual sense, not just mentally feeling better.

Manipulating a limb, massage, stroking, even simple touching, are CRITICAL to recovery. I had only one therapist, Tami, out of nine, and zero nurses out of fifteen or twenty, who got that. Tami would work my hand, wrist, elbow and shoulder. It helped me remember where the hand is and how it feels. It loosened up my shoulder, and helped me remember how it is supposed to move. I think she was hugely important in my being able to type this. I believe someone touching my foot after my stroke would have had a huge accelerating effect on the recovery of my walking ability. It never ever happened. I got better on my own, but it took a hell of a lot longer than it might have.

A lot of it is NOT “trained” touch that is needed… It is the touch of healing. Every mother knows about touch. Touch trains little hands to work better, it soothes a child’s “owies”, it connects a mother and child. Today the medical professional don’t WANT to be connected in ANY WAY with a patient – “not professional” – and they are afraid they will lose their “clinical” points of view. But healing, especially of stroke, REQUIRES involvement. “Oh, THAT is where that muscle is…” And touching takes time, and time is profit, and what is American medicine about if it is not about profit? Healing? Oh, that is a byproduct, that is what we sell, but it is not the purpose…

Not a single nurse ever touched me -  not even my hand – more than was absolutely required. It is like I was unclean, or from an unclean caste. Or that I was carrying the ebola virus and their eyes would start bleeding if they touched me. As wonderful as the nurses were, not one – not a singe one – ever put her or his hand on my arm to connect with me while we were speaking, for example. It does not have to be elaborate.

Nurses and especially therapists, particularly those who work with stroke patients, should be required to get training in touching – massage, eastern medicine or whatever.

All over the world (outside of the US) touch is part of “healing.” China, South America, England, even the Eskimos, use touch in healing.

Touch heals. It does. But not in America.

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