clinical focus
[Examples like] holding a patient’s hand are now being displaced
by technology, and I don’t think anything can [adequately] replace
the value and therapeutic benefit of somebody just touching
somebody – hand-to-hand contact.
In what other ways is technological disruption having a direct
effect on that physical contact?
A common thing that’s happening in nursing now is when patients
are having their pulse taken by a pulse oximeter. A device is put
on the patient’s finger to monitor a pulse. In the old days, and I
would hope that many nurses still do it, nurses hold the hand and
touch the patient to monitor a pulse rate. That’s often not being
done now. Nurses just put on a machine and take the pulse. Of
course that monitors the rate, but it doesn’t monitor a whole lot of
other things that are important about monitoring a pulse rate and,
certainly, patients miss out on having a nurse just touch them and
hold their hand while they’re doing their pulse.
There are many effects. For example, there’s evidence around
about how nurses are desensitised to the use of alarms in areas
such as the ICU, because there are so many false alarms. Often
when the alarms go off, nurses don’t even respond.
There are many opportunities for nurses to touch a patient,
and often students tell us they’ve got so many tasks to do they
haven’t got time to sit down and talk with a patient and hold
their hand.
In what ways can technology exist side by side with a warm
personal or tactile approach to patient care? What are some
of the things nurses should keep in mind, other than just
taking opportunities where they come?
Technology is here to stay and that technology is absolutely
wonderful. Great advances have been made with technology, but,
particularly as nurse educators, we need to role model the sorts
of behaviours we would expect our students and graduates to
undertake when they’re out in the clinical area. We need to talk to
them all the time about things like touch, about how important it is.
Years ago, there was much evidence in the literature about
the therapeutic effects of touch. Not so much now. People
aren’t talking about it as much as they could be, and we need
to raise awareness in our students about how important all of
these things are. They need to maximise every opportunity they
can, when they’re undertaking procedures with patients, to
remember that holding someone’s hand or touching someone
is often therapeutic.
Of course, along with the obvious benefits of touch to
patients in an emotional sense, there are studies now that
show touch releases oxytocin, which is [often referred to as]
the ‘feel-good’ hormone. Early studies show that therapeutic
touch raises hemoglobin levels. So there are also those
added benefits. ■
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