Therapeutic touch: its application for residents in aged care.

Contemporary nursing theories increasingly promote nursing as a specialist field facilitating patient wellbeing through therapeutic, qualitative approaches directed toward individual patient needs. Therapeutic touch is one such approach. The Nurse Healer’s Professional Associates International (NH-PAI) defines therapeutic touch as ‘a contemporary interpretation of several ancient-healing practices’, involving the ‘intentionally directed process of energy exchange during which practitioners use their hands to facilitate healing’. This paper discusses the effectiveness of therapeutic touch in the health profession, through a review of previous research and an exploratory study of specific therapeutic touch strategies in the care of residents of aged care facilities. By Sue Gregory and Julie Verdouw