Chronic pain relief after receiving affective touch: A single case report

Publication date

2023-09

Authors

Meijer, Larissa L.
Ruis, Carla
van der Smagt, Maarten J.
Dijkerman, H. Chris

Editors

Advisors

Supervisors

Document Type

Article

Collections

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License

cc_by

Abstract

Affective touch is gentle slow stroking of the skin, which can reduce experimentally induced pain. Our participant, suffering from Parkinson's Disease and chronic pain, received 1 week of non-affective touch and 1 week of affective touch as part of a larger study. Interestingly, after 2 days of receiving affective touch, the participant started to feel less pain. After 7 days, the burning painful sensations fully disappeared. This suggest that affective touch may reduce chronic pain in clinical populations.

Keywords

affective touch, chronic pain, Parkinson's disease, Neuropsychology and Physiological Psychology, Cognitive Neuroscience, Behavioral Neuroscience

Citation

Meijer, L L, Ruis, C, van der Smagt, M J & Dijkerman, H C 2023, 'Chronic pain relief after receiving affective touch : A single case report', Journal of Neuropsychology, vol. 17, no. 3, pp. 584-589. https://doi.org/10.1111/jnp.12321