Writing to Relieve Cancer Pain
Put feelings in writing helps improve the quality of life of these patients .
Some cancer patients may find relief in writing, according to a new study has revealed the benefits of this ‘therapy’ in pain and quality of life.
So far some research had suggested that the so-called ‘narrative medicine’ could be a good way of communication between seriously ill patients and their physicians. However, a new study has shown that the act of writing itself could help many cancer patients better understand their own feelings and needs, and even alleviate physical pain.
The work, led by Dr. Soledad Cepeda of Tufts Medical Center (Boston, USA), included the participation of 234 cancer patients were divided into three groups. One of them received the usual care, another third had to complete a standard questionnaire about the type and level of pain endured, and the last were invited to participate in a program on narrative writing.
Specifically, experts were asked to pass over at least 20 minutes a week, for a total of three, writing about their pain, their illness or how cancer affected their daily lives .
At the start of work and then once every seven days until it took eight weeks, patients in the three groups completed questionnaires about their general status and level of pain they felt, related to the tumor itself or to the different treatments.
Cepeda’s team found that patients who had black and white as their experience showed less pain and better quality of life than other participants. However, as described in the pages of the Journal of Pain & Symptom Management, “those cases in which the writing was neutral, and patients did not show through their texts no emotion, therapy was not useful.
Their findings suggest that the release of feelings is through writing is what relieves the pain of these patients, although not ruling it is not so in the case of seriously ill people who might struggle to openly address their emotions. In fact, a similar study published in ‘The Oncologist’ concluded that younger patients and those just learning their diagnoses were those who benefited most from this particular therapy.
For all recognize that more work will be needed to confirm these findings and confirm that encourage these people to reveal their feelings in writing can have other beneficial effects on their welfare. They add, further research should investigate whether the oral communication on the story itself is also positive.