Chronic pain relief after receiving affective touch: A single case report
Larissa L. Meijer, Carla Ruis, Maarten J. van der Smagt, H. Chris Dijkerman
Abstract
Affective touch is gentle slow stroking of the skin, which can reduce experimentally induced pain. Our participant, suffering from Parkinson's Disease and chronic pain, received 1 week of non-affective touch and 1 week of affective touch as part of a larger study. Interestingly, after 2 days of receiving affective touch, the participant started to feel less pain. After 7 days, the burning painful sensations fully disappeared. This suggest that affective touch may reduce chronic pain in clinical populations.
Topics & Concepts
Chronic painPsychologyAffect (linguistics)Physical medicine and rehabilitationMedicinePsychiatryCommunicationMusculoskeletal pain and rehabilitationBotulinum Toxin and Related Neurological DisordersPain Mechanisms and Treatments