MONTREAL (PasseportSanté.net), September 30, 2003 – Hypnosis effectively relieves pain in children, thus reducing the trauma associated with their hospital stay and the need to resort to a medical approach, explained Dr. Chantal Wood during the presentation. second congress in pediatric palliative care which was organized this week in Montreal by the Sainte-Justine Hospital.
“Hypnosis is a natural phenomenon,” explained Dr. Wood, who is affiliated with the Pain Treatment Unit at Robert-Debré Hospital in Paris. Since they have a highly developed imagination, children adhere to it much more easily than adults, who are more rational. It’s so much easier with children! ”
She also emphasizes that, unlike other alternative approaches such as acupuncture or massage therapy, hypnosis does not require the presence of a specialist. Once the technique has been learned, the patient himself can use it as he wishes, when the need arises.
“The children realize that my support changes the experience of the painful gesture,” she explains. They don’t experience it the same way anymore. They experienced a great thing, and by this great thing, they did not experience the painful gesture. “
“Sometimes it even works almost too well,” Dr. Wood continues. It happened to me to take, in his imagination, a kid to see a football match at the stadium. He got so restless that I had to tell him we were now at half time so the doctor could insert his needle! “
Hypnosis would be equally effective in relieving chronic pain that results from migraines, amputation, paraplegia or Crohn’s disease. It also drastically reduces the need for pain-relieving drugs, although ironically, its effectiveness may be due to the fact that it appears to activate the same pain-suppressing areas in the brain as morphine.
“With hypnotic techniques, a kid who takes headache medication may, after a month or two, not take any more at all,” she explains. I had a little patient who had “missed” three months of school due to chronic pain and when I took charge of her, I believe that during the last three months she only “missed” ‘just one day. Her parents said she was more relaxed, that she was less afraid of pain. “
More than the pain
Beyond relieving their pain, children treated with hypnosis can derive a state of relaxation that allows them to sleep better, feel better about themselves and be more rested.
“The effectiveness of these techniques is underestimated, but perhaps even more so in children,” says Dr. Wood. In the child’s pain, one does not hear the complexity of the painful complaint. It is as complex as in adults. You don’t want to see the anguish of a one-year-old with leukemia. It is obvious that his parents are not so comfortable with him. They play a game, but the child perceives it and that contributes to his own anxiety, since things are different ”.
However, despite the apparent effectiveness of the technique, it remains unfamiliar to a good number of physicians, who therefore cannot – and therefore dare, in certain cases – offer it to their patients. All the more so since in the popular imagination, hypnosis remains associated with the supremacy of one individual over another (what Doctor Wood calls “music hall hypnosis”), while this has no effect. commensurate with reality.
“There is a mistrust of anything that is alternative and complementary,” she concludes. But doctors would benefit from familiarizing themselves with these techniques and understanding that they can help them relieve their patients as a whole ”.
Jean-Benoit Legault – PasseportSanté.net
