Aromatherapy breathes new life into patients' well-being - U-T San Diego

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As the clinical nutrition program manager at Sharp Coronado, Barbara Bauer has done leading research on ways to stimulate the appetite of patients who are not interested in food, such as those undergoing cancer treatment.

For many patients, she’s found the solution is simple: aromatherapy.

As of now, research on the effectiveness of aromatherapy — which involves the therapeutic use of essential oils from plants — is not wide-ranging, but some health care providers are using it to their benefit to encourage eating or diminish headaches.

According to the Mayo Clinic’s website, studies have shown that aromatherapy’s potential health benefits may offer relief from anxiety and depression while improving quality of life for those with chronic health conditions. Smaller studies using aromatherapy with lavender oil suggest the treatment could make needle pricks less painful for patients undergoing dialysis, improve sleep for those in hospitals and lessen pain for pediatric patients during tonsillectomy.

The Mayo Clinic site explains that aromatherapy is thought to stimulate smell receptors in the nose that send messages to the nervous and limbic systems, the portion of the brain that controls emotions.

For instance, at Sharp Coronado, Bauer said citrus oils are used to stimulate appetite in long-term care patients.

She said the sense of smell usually decreases with age, as well as in patients who have dementia. Yet she noted the sense of smell is important in stimulating the salivatory glands as one gets ready to eat. As a result, she said a study was done at the hospital in 2010 where citrus oils such as tangerine, orange and grapefruit were placed near the nose or on the necks of patients in the long-term care unit.

“With citrus … the thought is that it helps open nasal passages so you can breathe better,” she said. In turn, the nose is stimulated to better smell food and activate salivatory glands.

“The whole experience gets you ready to eat,” she said.

Food intake was measured during the study, Bauer said. It found that found that patients who received aromatherapy had 10 percent greater food intake, while some had intake of greater than 20 percent.

The results were so positive that the treatment is now done every day in the unit at lunch and dinner. In the first year, 86 percent of patients were able to get off appetite stimulants, which can be cause for concern because of their side effects.

Because of its success, the process is now also being done with patients who are in the acute care unit and have poor appetite.

Aromatherapy is also incorporated by health professionals such as Victoria Risovanny, an acupuncturist in Coronado’s Healthy Living Center, who uses it to treat headaches and other conditions. She said she also uses essential oils at times instead of needles and seen “amazing results.”

A variety of different oils can be applied to different points of the body with a finger or a cotton swab, she said, to help with everything from anxiety, depression, stress, digestive issues, migraines, menopause symptoms and sleeping problems.

The idea, she said, is when somebody inhales the oils, the scent goes to the brain and helps the nervous system feel relaxed. As a result, many oils reduce tension that can cause headaches by dilating blood vessels that are constricted.

“A variety of oils can work,” Risovanny said. “Everybody who I’ve applied this technique on (says) it’s like a miracle. … It’s a great way to get healthy again.”