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Deepak Chopra, MD
"EFT offers great healing benefits."
EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques®) Where emotional relief brings physical health
Self help method often works where nothing else will No Drugs Involved ~ High Success Rate
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Using EFT with a dementia patient: A touching story
Hi Everyone,
Sarajane Thomas tells this tender story of her gentle use of EFT with a 78 year old woman in the final stage of Alzheimer's Disease. Using EFT in this manner can be a loving help to those in the final pages of their lives.
Hugs, Gary
Hi Gary,
Amongst other things that I do in my life, I’m a volunteer on a four-person hospice team that visits with dying patients at a nearby nursing home where they tend only to dementia patients. The current person I’m working with is a 78-year old woman who had been ambulatory and able to feed herself up until about two weeks ago. She is diagnosed as being in the final/4th stage of Alzheimer’s Disease.
I just got back from visiting with “Ruth”. She is failing quickly at this time. When I arrived today for my visit with her, Ruth was falling asleep in a wheelchair in the dining room looking as though she were about to slip right out of her chair onto the floor. After two aides got her into bed where she would be more comfortable, I began singing softly to her and doing comfort touch on her right arm and forehead.
Since the tears that were quietly moving down her cheeks indicated she was in undue pain, I began to do surrogate EFT work on her. I used the set-up phrase, “Even though I, Ruth, am seriously ill, I deeply and completely accept myself.” I could tell almost immediately that a part of her was somehow sensing what I was saying because her facial muscles began to relax and the pained expression was leaving her eyes. Furthermore, she was much more alert than before.
She lifted her head off the pillow, opened her eyes abnormally wide to look at me and kept them that way for the next half hour as though to say to me, “I know you’re doing something I like.” Then I began to actually tap very gently --- with one finger --- on her facial points. The distraught and pained expression on her face began to soften; she started to calm down. I just kept repeating the process again and again.
While absorbed in what we were doing together, I suddenly realized that she was responding even more to the tapping. When I would pause, she would actually lift her head up off the pillow in such a way that I could get to her face more easily, as though she were indicating she wanted me to continue. I kept on with the gentle tapping on her face again and again while I repeated to her in a whisper that she was seriously ill and very accepting of herself.
Later, I was even more amazed to comprehend that she was actually trying to tap on herself. I sat there in wonderment and figured it just had to be an overactive imagination. However, I stayed in that calm place we had built together from the tapping, and I kept praising her as she struggled to make movement. One of her hands was close to the second point (on the side of the eye) and she could rub that spot easily, I noticed.Con
Even though I could sense that some deep part of her wanted to do the tapping for herself, the body just wasn’t responding. And so I took her hand, and as she would relax and allow me to do so, I would guide her index finger to the tapping points on her face. She was absolutely absorbed in what was going on. If she had been a kitten, I swear she would have been purring.
The hospice staff who supervises the volunteers feel that since a dementia patient has such a short attention span, the length of the visit should be limited to only 15 – 20 minutes. (I usually stay longer anyhow.) I became so absorbed in what my friend and I were doing that after a while when I checked the clock, I found that I had been with her for over 75 minutes. As I prepared to leave Ruth for this visit, I could definitely tell she was still struggling to do the tapping. What a time to have to leave her. My heart so wanted to stay, but my training was insisting that it was past time to leave. And, since we are required to report the time we spend with each patient…….
This session with Ruth today was so intense that it would not have surprised me in the least if she had started to talk, something she has not done since I have known her these past three months.
The biggest surprise of all today was that Ruth wanted to tap in her own behalf. I really look forward to seeing her again in another few days. In the meantime, I will be doing more surrogate work for her from my home.
Gary Craig says to try EFT on everything and anything. I have been open to doing just that. I am astounded and stand ready to do some more gentle work with Ruth if she indicates a desire for me to do so.
Sarajane Thomas
