Clinical aromatherapy: How herbs can help patients sleep, heal and feel comforted

Most people associate essential oils with their most common uses as atmospheric room vaporisers, for aromatherapy massage and for steam inhalation and baths.

However, in the past decade or so, aromatherapy has moved into clinical settings and a growing body of research has built up around its use with children and adults in hospitals around the world.

Rhiannon Harris is a teacher and practitioner of clinical aromatherapy. She is the principal organiser of Botanica 2014, an international conference for clinical aromatherapists and herbalists to be held in Dublin next weekend.

“We are expecting up to 250 herbalists and aromatherapists,” says Harris, who is based in France. “The benefit of this conference is that it is independent of any membership organisation, so participants can hear from a wider group of speakers and put aromatherapy in the context of plant and herbal medicine,” she says.

“It will also be of interest to healthcare professionals keen to see what’s happening in the field.”

Harris says clinical aromatherapy is used mostly in cancer centres, hospices and older people’s care settings. “In Ireland and the UK, we have more than 25 years’ experience working in hospices.”

Resistance to aromatherapists

“In places such as France and Germany, there has been much more resistance to aromatherapists working in hospitals as herbal medicine is still tightly controlled by medical doctors,” she explains.

The greatest area of growth is in elder care, according to Harris. “There is a more recent focus on how aromatherapy can be used for older people. Everyone is conscious of our ageing society, the lack of supports and resources, and the rise of age-related diseases such as dementia.”

Linda-Anne O’Flaherty is one of the speakers at Botanica 2014. She works at the Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa.

Aromatherapy was first introduced to the burns unit at the hospital 10 years ago. “Initially, there was a lot of scepticism among the medical staff as to what the treatment could offer,” says O’Flaherty.

“However, as treatments continued, the nursing staff began to comment on how the children were sleeping for longer periods after they had been massaged and that it was a more peaceful, healing sleep.”

The success of the aromatherapy massage in the burns unit at the Cape Town hospital led to requests for aromatherapy in other wards.

Eight volunteers now work across oncology, burns, trauma, surgical, medical and in the intensive care unit under the supervision of the pain management department at the hospital.

O’Flaherty says older children have commented on how the oils helped relieve their pain and itching. However, about 7 per cent of young patients (average age 15 months) cried, wriggled and were distressed when massaged. A blend of calming essential oils – German chamomile, lavender and neroli – is used with gentle massage techniques on all patients.

Memory loss

Ulla-Maija Grace is the director of Aromatica Wellness in Turku, Finland. She will speak at the conference about how aromatherapy can be used to help patients who are suffering memory impairment or who are receiving palliative care. She is very conscious of the global ageing population with increasing care needs, sometimes compounded by social isolation.

“Essential oils can reduce anxiety, lift melancholy, activate interest and ease discomfort of these patients,” she says.

Grace believes that carers, nurses, therapists or family members who are trained to give the 10-15 minute hand or lower-arm massage will also benefit from the health-enhancing benefits of the oils.

During her work, Grace recorded lots of positive remarks from patients and noticed other effects such as patients massaging their own hands, remembering to use their hands and, in particular, eating without assistance.

She says the four different elements of the treatment are significant: the massage with the essential oils; the effect of the aroma; the triggering of memories; and the individual attention and respectful approach derived from the interaction between the patient and the therapist.

Grace says that aromas relate to the patient’s natural environment and may help bring old memories to the surface.

Different countries also have scents more closely associated with them such as the silver birch or acacia in Finland, the pine in Canada and the rose in England.

Airborne diffusion

Lisa McEwan is another aromatherapist working in a clinical setting. She will speak about a project which introduced aromatherapy via airborne diffusion into Rennes University Hospital in France.

After much initial resistance, including objection to the use of tap water in the aromatherapy diffusers, the mobile palliative care team trained two volunteer carers to use the diffusers to neutralise urine odour, to neutralise other odours associated with physiological illness and to create a soothing relaxing ambiance. It took more than four years to get full authorisation for the project.

“The hardest part is over: the University of Rennes now accepts and provides aromatherapy by airborne diffusion and the door is open to other possibilities,” says McEwan.

Botanica 2014 will be held at Trinity College Dublin from September 5th to 7th. Irish herbalists, Dr Dilis Clare, Rosari Kingston and Sean Boylan are keynote speakers at the opening event on Friday evening. See botanica2014.com