Aromatherapy Hand Massage for Older Adults with Chronic Pain Living in Long-Term Care

Abstract

Older adults living in long-term care experience high rates of chronic pain. Concerns with pharmacologic management have spurred alternative approaches. This study examined a nurse led complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) intervention, aromatherapy hand massage. In this three group randomized control design, 118 older adult participants with chronic pain living in long-term care facilities received either eight sessions of aromatherapy hand massage, hand massage without aromatherapy or nurse presence visits administered by the nurse investigator. Chronic pain was measured before and after the intervention using the Geriatric Multidimensional Pain and Illness Inventory (GMPI) an instrument with three subscales Pain and Suffering, Life Interference and Emotional Distress and the Iowa Pain Thermometer (IPT) a pain intensity measure. Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) and repeated measures analysis of variance for mixed design were used to test the hypothesis and answer the research questions. Group membership was found to have a significant effect on the GMPI Pain and Suffering F(2, 110) = 5.807, p = .004, η_p² = .096. In addition, the change in IPT scores differed within groups over time, F(2, 110) = 4.293, p = .016, η_p² = .072. The results indicate aromatherapy hand massage or hand massage without aromatherapy significantly decrease chronic pain intensity compared to nurse presence visits in older adults with chronic pain. This safe, simple, but effective intervention could be taught to caregivers to improve chronic pain management in this population.