Touch in Health Care

Inside Health

BBC

Health & Fitness, Science

4.4 • 575 Ratings

🗓️ 6 October 2020

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Radio 4 Touch Test included questions about touch in health care. Dr Natalie Bowling who's a psychologist from the University of Greenwich helped to create the test with colleagues at Goldsmith's University. Analysing the data revealed that a positive attitude towards touch in treatment settings increases as we get older. Surprisingly men reported being more likely to feel comfortable with touch in treatment settings - despite women preferring tactile treatments more than men.

GPs Margaret McCartney and Ann Robinson agree on the importance of touch in their consulting rooms - both to help tell the difference between constipation and a ruptured appendix - and to place a comforting hand on the shoulder of a distressed patient.

Chemotherapy cannot cure 82 year old Anne Townsend who was given a diagnosis of ovarian cancer a year ago - but it's hoped it will help to relieve her symptoms. One side effect has been a loss of her sense of touch - devastating because she loves to sew quilts. She found that reflexology sessions helped - though they stopped because of lockdown and she now uses acupressure techniques which she was taught online by therapists at St Christopher's hospice.

Deborah Bowman, Professor of Bioethics at St George's University, also felt calmer and better-prepared for medical procedures when she was having cancer treatment. She explains how she trains medical students to approach their patients in a sensitive way and use touch with care.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, I'm Greg Jenna and good news, Your Dead to Me is back for a new series. Here we go. Yes, we'll explore Emperor Nero's notorious reign with Professor Marybeard and Patton Oswald. I would not want my daughter having the remote control, not alone an empire. We'll dissect the decadent life of Philippe Duke-Dor-Leon with Tom Allen. I've often tried to pretend I'm an aristocrat and being very quickly knocked down.
0:23.0	And there'll be so much more with comedians like Olga Koch, Mike Mosniak and Ria Elena.
0:26.9	I'm excited.
0:27.6	You're dead to me.
0:28.5	The comedy podcast that takes history seriously.
0:30.9	Listen first on BBC Sounds.
0:34.5	BBC Sounds. Music, radio podcasts. Hello, if you've been listening to Radio For Much this week, you might have heard of the touch test by now.
0:43.4	Perhaps you were one of the 40,000 people who took part in this online study.
0:49.1	And if you did, you might remember a section on touch in healthcare.
0:53.2	And that's what we're going to focus on in this special edition of Inside Health.
0:58.1	What if psychotherapists were allowed to give a distressed client a hug?
1:03.2	And apart from the physical examination, how much touch goes on in the consulting room?
1:08.4	Sometimes a hand in the shoulder, if appropriate, rarely a hug.
1:11.7	Sometimes small children are very keen to enthusiastically greet you, which is always lovely.
1:16.7	To discuss the practicalities and ethics involved in touch in health settings,
1:21.1	I'm joined by Deborah Bowman, who's Professor of Bioethics at St George's University,
1:26.8	and Dr Natalie Bowling is here. She's a psychologist from the University of Greenwich, and along with colleagues at Goldsmith's University, she created and analysed the touch test. Welcome to both of you. Let me ask you, Natalie, do you hug your doctor? I've never hugged my doctor. I think I'd find it slightly odd, actually. Yeah. And what
1:44.9	about you, Deborah? Oh gosh, do you know, I did hug my oncologist, but we weren't in a clinical
1:49.8	setting. We were at conference together, and I asked first. Well, hugging at conferences,
1:54.2	that's different, isn't it, I guess? Now, we're going to start with how essential the sense of touch
1:59.8	can be for patients and for doctors.
2:02.4	Sight and sound might dominate our world, but if we start to lose the sense of touch, even a bit, the result can be profound.
	...

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