learn how to help Maya relax and relieve her colic,
I learned how to read her emotional cues and build
my confidence as a mother.” She decided to certify
as a teacher in infant massage, and now offers the
course to parents in Molde. “The benefits are
huge. My husband and I took the course together,”
said Elsie. Having recently given birth to her sec-
ond child. She will teach Maya, now two, how to
help and do some gentle strokes.
It is only in relatively recent years that science
has begun to understand the highly complex sys-
tem of nerves, sensors and receptors that link our
skin and brain to our environment and the other
people in it. “There is still so much we don’t know
about various touch sensations,” says Linden. We
do know, however, “there are separate sensors for
texture, vibration, pressure and itch,” he says.
One of the leading touch researchers in theworld is Dr. Hakan Olausson, professor of clinical
neuroscience at Linköping University in Sweden.
He was part of a team that found special touch
fibres, called C-tactile afferent fibres, that are
responsible for registering and transmitting the
emotional meaning of gentle, slow strokes and
caresses. These nerves respond optimally when
touched at around 32 degrees celcius – the tem-
perature of a human hand. “They are particularly
sensitive to caresses by other people, but also
respond to many other types of touch, such as
pressing on the skin,” says Dr. Olausson.
When the CT fibres don’t work properly, it may
undermine making emotional connections to
other people. Research last year led by neurosci-
ent i s t F r a nci s Mc G lone , a t L iver p o ol Joh n Mo or e s
University in England has found that children on
the autism spectrum may have a difference in the
functioning of their CT fibres that causes them to
feel another person’s soft touch as unpleasant.
As we age, our sense of touch gets less sensitive,
but Dr. Olausson and another team of researchers
found that the pleasantness of touch remains and
is even enhanced with age.
Alas, as Thyago Ohana well knows, the elderly
among us, while appreciating touch more, may be
the most touch-deprived. Linden notes the
research is clear about the benefits of massage
and other forms of social touch for the elderly, but
it hasn’t yet been translated widely into care
homes and other senior-oriented health services.
Dr. Manuel Arroyo-Morales, is a professor of
physiotherapy at the University of Granada in
Spain, where researchers study “the effect of
hands on the human body.” He and his team are
particularly interested in the impact of massage
therapies on cancer patients, finding that it par-
tially reduces pain and fatigue, strengthens the
immune system, reduces anxiety.
Importantly, they have found that some of the
outcomes depend on the attitude of the patient
towards touch and the relationship between ther-
apist and patient. It is the specific type of massage
and the “consensual touching relationship” that
provide the key benefits, says Dr. Arroyo-Morales.
Joannie McCutcheon, 65, knows that first
hand. In 2005, while she was living in Amster-
dam, working in a multi-national company as an
IT specialist, she was diagnosed with two brain
tumors. One was a benign meningioma and the
other a more aggressive oligodendrogliama.
Joannie had surgery to remove part of one (theAs we age, our sense
of touch gets less sensitive,
but researchers found
that the pleasantness
of touch remains.
ISTOCK48 AUGUST | SEPTEMBER 2019 best health besthealthmag.ca
WELLNESS UPDATE