Biofield therapies, which claim to use subtle energy to stimulate the body's healing process, are promising complementary interventions for reducing the intensity of pain in a number of conditions, reducing anxiety for hospitalised patients and reducing agitated behaviours in dementia, over and above what standard treatments can achieve. However, longer-term effects are less clear.
A significant number of patients use biofield therapies - Reiki, therapeutic touch and healing touch - despite very little research proving that they work. These techniques have been used over millennia in various cultural communities to heal physical and mental disorders. They have only recently been under the scrutiny of current Western scientific methods.
In a detailed review of 66 clinical studies looking at biofield therapies in different patient populations with a range of ailments, Jain and Mills examine the strength of the evidence for the efficacy of these complementary therapies. They show that overall, published work on biofield therapies is of average quality - in scientific terms.
Bearing that in mind, they find strong evidence that biofield therapies reduce pain intensity in free-living populations, and moderate evidence that they are effective at lowering pain in hospitalised patients as well as in patients with cancer.
There is also moderate evidence that these therapies ease agitated behaviours in dementia and moderate evidence that they reduce anxiety in hospitalised patients. There is inconclusive evidence for the efficacy of biofield therapies on symptoms of fatigue and quality of life in cancer patients, as well as for overall pain reduction, and anxiety management in cardiovascular patients.
Dr Shamini Jain, from the UCLA Division of Cancer Prevention and Control Research, and Dr Paul Mills, from the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California, and the Moores Comprehensive Cancer Centre in San Diego, US, publish their review of the science behind biofield therapies online this week in Springer's International Journal of Behavioural Medicine.
