At William Beaumont Hospital, in Royal Oak, Michigan, people who have been touched by cancer are now being touched by complementary care. The hospital’s integrative-medicine department offers massage, reiki, Healing Touch and guided imagery to cancer patients, survivors, caregivers, family members and hospital staff.

“Integrative medicine offers a place where the whole person is honored and cared for, not just the lump in the breast,” says Charlotte Versagi, clinical supervisor of the hospital’s massage-therapy program, which began in January.

For the first four months, Versagi, who is also a contributor to MASSAGE Magazine, was the program’s sole massage therapist, seeing about five cancer patients per day, four days a week. As of May (past this publication’s deadline) Versagi planned to take on 11 post-graduate massage students for an internship in oncology massage. With the interns, Versagi says around 10 cancer patients per day, four days a week, were likely to receive massage.

Other members of the department include Integrative-Medicine Coordinator Gail Elliott Evo, a reiki master and guided-imagery specialist; five reiki and Healing Touch practitioners; and another guided-imagery specialist. Elliott Evo says she plans to add an acupuncturist to the team as well.

In the midst of unpacking and settling into a designated suite of offices at Beaumont Cancer Center, Elliott Evo told MASSAGE Magazine that the integrative-medicine department would soon expand to serve cancer patients at Beaumont’s Troy location, too.

Beaumont is the latest in a growing group of major hospitals that have formed integrative-medicine departments, especially for cancer care. The trend comes in the wake of mounting research on complementary care for cancer symptoms, and the documentation of cancer patients actively seeking such care on their own.

“Most comprehensive cancer centers in the United States are offering some form of integrative medicine,” says Elliott Evo. “It’s important that it be handled in a safe manner, especially with a diagnosis like cancer.”

According to Versagi, massaging an oncology patient is much more complex than it may look. “You have to know about the risks of lymphedema,” she says, “and to alter pressure in the affected arm [or] quadrant. You have to work around metaports and scars and radiation burns. You have to know that during infusion you can only work for 15 minutes on the hands or feet.

“So, the actual massage looks pretty straightforward,” she added, “but it’s the knowledge in the hands that makes all the difference.”

Massage and other forms of complementary care are readily available to cancer patients and caregivers at Beaumont, whether in the hospital room; the infusion center, where patients receive chemotherapy; or in the cancer center’s integrative-medicine suite.

“The mission is who we’re assisting, and that we’re offering safe and effective programs that encourage wellness at all levels—the mind, body and spirit,” says Elliott Evo.

Besides general relaxation, massaging a cancer patient can decrease pain perception, nausea, fatigue, anxiety and depression, as documented in recent studies, such as “Massage Therapy for Symptom Control: Outcome Study at a Major Cancer Center,” by Barrie R. Cassileth, Ph.D, and Andrew J. Vickers, Ph.D., of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City (Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, September 2004, Vol. 28, No. 3, pp. 244-249).

“Patients, in their own way, all say the same thing,” says Versagi. “‘It is so good to be treated somewhere along this cancer journey as if you are more than the disease.’”

*Image: Charlotte Versagi, clinical supervisor of Beaumont Hospital's oncology-massage program, works on cancer patient Rebecca Brandish, in Royal Oak, Michigan. Photo By: Jerry Zolynsky