In my practice of Comfort Touch with clients who are elderly or chronically ill, I am usually visiting them in their own homes, whether that be in a private home, a hospice facility, a residential care facility, or other medical setting. Unlike a typical massage practice in which I get to know the person by asking questions of them in an intake interview, there can be limitations to the client’s ability to communicate, so it is often necessary to gather information and establish rapport in other ways.
I’ve found that one way to get to know my clients is by observing their surroundings. I notice photographs or greeting cards that are in the room that can tell me about the person and their life. I’ve noticed that when I comment about a photo that I see, it can evoke a fond memory for the client about a special loved one, or a particularly happy time.
As you observe the photos, artworks or special objects in a client’s room, you develop a greater appreciation for the wholeness of the person’s life. Your words of interest or appreciation about what you see, let them know that you see them beyond the frail individual they now appear to be. For example, when I commented to one elderly woman about a photo of a sailboat on her wall, she began to tell me about her deceased husband, and all the happy times they and their children had shared in that boat.
In one skilled nursing facility, I worked with an elderly man with Parkinson’s disease. He had limited ability to speak, and seemed distant and uncommunicative. I noticed that he had a single framed photograph on the wall. It was of a young man hiking on a trail in steep mountainous terrain. When I asked if that was him in the photo, he smiled and nodded his head, indicating that is was. The photo helped me to see him as a whole person, one who carried that memory and experience of the wilderness into the present. As I shared my love of the mountains with him, he listened attentively, grateful to be seen and acknowledged.
(Adapted from Comfort Touch: Massage for the Elderly and the Ill by Mary Kathleen Rose. Lippincott Williams and Wilkins, 2009. Available at www.comforttouch.com. 303-651-9375)
