The Efficacy of Reflexology in Nursing Home Residents with Dementia

Summary of

"The Efficacy of Reflexology in Nursing Home Residents with Dementia"

By Nancy Hodgson and Susan Anderson

With the sky-rocketing costs of healthcare, more people are looking beyond medication for alternate sources of mental and physical relief. One of those alternate sources is studied in, "The Efficacy of Reflexology in Nursing Home residents with Dementia" by Nancy Hodgson and Susan Anderson. This is a study showing the positive effects of reflexology in the decreasing of pain and stress in nursing home residents with dementia.

The writers begin by describing the studies done in the 70's and 80's. The studies at that time didn't study later staged dementias, used no comparison group, and the only evaluating tool was with observation of behaviors. With more and more touch therapy research being done, the writers state, "one of the common challenges in conducting literature reviews in the field of touch therapy is the lack of consistent terminology for describing the treatment". That is why the writers explain that the older studies used more of a massage type touch compared to the reflexology used in this study.

The project was started by choosing a nursing home in a Philadelphia suburb. The study was very selective on which residents qualified to be a part of the study. Twenty one residents qualified and agreed to participate in the study. The twenty one residents were divided into two separate groups, ten residents in the first, and 11 in the second.