relaxation : not just for the hippies

Hi All,

I had been working with patients who suffers from dypsnea the last 4 weeks. I have used relaxation techniques on many occassions. Some patients are a little bit uncomfortable with this 'new age' thing, some are willing to try anything that works.

One of my patients was an anxious lady who was diagnosed with Type 2 Resp. Failure (recovering) with a past medical history of Breast Cancer (in remission), she also suffered hip and groin pain when actively flexing her hip. I taught her breathing control combined with relaxation technique because of her dyspnoea. No one could figure out or dwell into too much why she's anxious. I guess after we all have been working in the medical respiratory ward for a while, we just assume the dypsnoea's to do with respiratory diseases. The day before her discharge, she revealed to me that she's been worrying about the cancer cells might have spread to her hip as that's what happened to her sister who died to similar cause. She then told me that she used the relaxation breathing technique to help coping with her anxiety related dyspnoea when she was in the scanning machine and that it will be her daily practice from now on. (She's been cleared from cancer, by the way. It was a false alarm.)

I have learned two things from this:
1. it takes time to piece together the cause of dyspnoea sometimes, it's not always so straight forward, anxiety may be the cause, but what is the cause of the anxiety, that's the part we need to have some patience to figure it out.
2. relaxation technique works on ppl who are receptive to it.