Haven Hospice goes above and beyond to ensure our patients’ comfort by offering a Palliative Massage Therapy program to enhance pain control and symptom management. In 2010, Haven provided 6,619 palliative massage treatments for our patients. Your support of Haven Hospice in 2010 helped offset $281,856 in unreimbursed expenses for this program.

Haven’s palliative massage therapists offer a special patient care program that few other hospices do—they specialize in providing the gentle touch that our patients need, enhancing the care and compassion provided by Haven’s patient care teams.

First and foremost, our massage therapists strive to make patients comfortable and help them to relax. “They seem to sleep better and some are noticing a reduction in the pain medication they need to take,” says Nancy Smith, LMT, licensed massage therapist for the Gainesville home team. Their caregivers report they are in a better mood after massage.

Palliative massage is “pain relief and comfort with a completely different hands-on approach … a much lighter touch,” Nancy says. “You have to meet patients where they are and look at the kinds of medications they’re taking. The kind of massage they need changes from day to day, depending on where they are in the disease process and how they’re feeling.”

“Everything is approached much more carefully,” says Elisabet Carlson, LMT, licensed massage therapist for the Chiefland team. “You can’t assume that patients move as easily. Their skin and bones are fragile, and it can take time for someone to get comfortable.” To increase patients’ comfort, Elisabet will layer towels over the skin and massage through the towels.
Being present with patients may be all some of them need, depending on what stage they are in their disease process. “There’s great loving energy in just being there, holding a hand or playing music,” says Elisabet, who played Pomp and Circumstance for a patient who couldn’t be at her grandson’s graduation and could only look at his picture.

 “Patients communicate really well about what they need,” she says. “That’s what I love about them.”

Elisabet and Nancy are graduates of the Florida School of Massage in Gainesville, where Nancy worked until she joined Haven last year. “The school emphasizes the whole person,” she says, “meeting the person where he or she is and really being present for that person.” 

Massage made the difference in Nancy’s pursuit of alternative pain management for injuries she suffered in a car accident 22 years ago. Physical therapy didn’t help and she could only take medications for so long.

Elisabet was a child when she gave her first massages to her Finnish grandmother. In Scandinavia, massage therapy is very much a part of healing. While working in medical records at North Florida Regional Medical Center, she massaged co-workers who complained of back or neck aches and was so good they encouraged her to do it for a living.

Nancy and Elisabet are among eight staff massage therapists and five volunteer therapists who work closely with Haven’s teams to enhance the care we provide to patients.

For more information about Haven Palliative Massage, call 1-800-727-1889.