Aromatherapy improves nausea, pain, and mood for patients receiving pediatric palliative care symptom-based consults: A pilot design trial.

Aromatherapy improves nausea, pain, and mood for patients receiving pediatric palliative care symptom-based consults: A pilot design trial. Palliat Support Care. 2019 Aug 19;:1-6 Authors: Weaver MS, Robinson J, Wichman C Abstract OBJECTIVE: The role of aromatherapy in supportive symptom management for pediatric patients receiving palliative care has been underexplored. This pilot study aimed to measure the impact of aromatherapy using validated child-reported nausea, pain, and mood scales 5 minutes and 60 minutes after aromatherapy exposure. METHODS: The 3 intervention arms included use of a symptom-specific aromatherapy sachet scent involving deep breathing. The parallel default control arm (for those children with medical exclusion criteria to aromatherapy) included use of a visual imagery picture envelope and deep breathing. Symptom burden was sequentially assessed at 5 and 60 minutes using the Baxter Retching Faces scale for nausea, the Wong-Baker FACES scale for pain, and the Children's Anxiety and Pain Scale (CAPS) for anxious mood. Ninety children or adolescents (mean age 9.4 years) at a free-standing children's hospital in the United States were included in each arm (total n = 180). RESULTS: At 5 minutes, there was a mean improvement of 3/10 (standard deviation [SD] 2.21) on the nausea scale; 2.6/10 (SD 1.83) on the pain scale; and 1.6/5 (SD 0.93) on the mood scale for the aromatherapy cohort (p < 0.0001). ...
Source: Palliative and Supportive Care - Category: Palliative Care Authors: Tags: Palliat Support Care Source Type: research