The Iowa Hospice Mind, Body and Spirit team provides gentle, innovative techniques, including both music and massage therapies, at the bedside of hospice patients that are designed to provide comfort and alleviate pain.
Mind
Iowa Hospice believes quality psychiatric care for the terminally ill should be an integral component of excellent, comprehensive end-of-life care. The most basic challenge at the end of life for patients and their families is loss. Some of the psychiatric problems and issues commonly seen at the end of life include anxiety symptoms and disorders, depressive symptoms and disorders, delirium and other cognitive disorders, suicidal ideation, grief, and bereavement.
Virtually all patients who are faced with dying experience episodes of sadness. A minimum of 22 percent and as many as 75 percent of patients who are dying experience clinical depression. Depression is not inevitable and should not be considered a normal part of dying. Depression shares common features with grief. Misdiagnosis can result in overlooking depression or inappropriately treating grief. Depression and grief are different conditions that require different treatments. Patients with depression often require combined psychological intervention and pharmacotherapy. It is important to identify and alleviate the fears that terminally ill patients commonly experience because these fears can precipitate or exacerbate depression.
Body
Massage therapy for the body provides a cost-effective therapeutic tool with low risk, if appropriately administered. Massage can aid in both pain relief and symptom management. Iowa Hospice employs three full-time massage therapists with more than 20 years of experience. Before working with hospice patients, our massage therapists undergo program-specific training. For hospice patients, massage therapy can provide significant and immediate improvements in pain and anxiety. Massage can also increase peacefulness.
Benefits from Massage Therapy:
- Reduces pain
- Improves self-reported symptoms
- Physical and psychological relief
- Heightens peacefulness
- Decreases anxiety
- Restores emotional balance and physical comfort
- Reduces stress
Spirit
Music therapy is the use of sounds and music to support and encourage physical, mental, social, spiritual, and emotional well-being. Music is a fun way to reduce pain, alleviate symptoms, and allow patients to communicate. Iowa Hospice has three full-time music therapists who bring musical knowledge and musical therapy experience to Iowa Hospice. Our music therapists can sing and play a variety of instruments and look forward to sharing the therapeutic experience of music with patients. | 
