Doctors adopt hypnosis as a step before certain surgeries to help reduce worry: In some cases, this may mean that a lower dose of sedative is needed, or that the operation is performed under local anaesthetic alone. In the great BritainA a new approach with self-hypnosis recordings is giving very good resultswhile recent studies on children prove that hypnosis enhances personal experiences during interventions and accelerates recovery.

Hypnosis is being used in some hospitals in United Kingdom, United States, Australia, Canada and the Netherlandsamong other sites, for reduce patient anxiety before surgery or medical procedures and the stress created by the hospital environment. Among the different experiences, the initiative from Royal College of Anesthesia (RCoA) from the United Kingdom, which has applied audio-guided self-hypnosis to patients with interesting results, as well as the conclusions of a study on children aged 7 to 16 years, published in the scientific journal ‘British Journal of Anesthesia’.

Hypnotic tape against anxiety

That Hypnosis implies an altered state of consciousness and increased relaxation, which allows for better attention and concentration. To achieve this state of mind, an initial set of instructions and suggestions must be followed, which can be generated by a therapy or self-induced, as in the case of audio recordings. By achieving a hypnotic state, the person reduces the impact of situations that cause stress and anxiety.

According to an article published in New Scientist, the UK’s Royal College of Anesthetists (RCoA) asked healthcare workers in early April this year to give people self-hypnosis tapes, to listen to them before medical procedures. As well as listening to hypnosis recordings or reading of scripts by healthcare professionals, staff may also use “hypnotic suggestions” or key phrases to help people relax.

This new approach can also be used before surgery that requires the person to be put to sleep under general anesthesia. “It’s not an alternative to anesthesia, it’s an adjunct to preoperative anxiety,” said Samantha Black, the anesthesiologist who helped develop it RCoA Records, in the previously cited article. Although the audio approach is novelhypnosis has been successfully used in Belgian hospitals since the 1990s, according to a 2011 article published by the Argentinian media Infobae.

Very effective in children

Meanwhile, another trial has just been spotted children aged between 7 and 16 years who are undergoing a procedure where a catheter is pushed into the heart, which requires general anesthesia. According to a scientific study led by Chrystelle Sola, children who listened to nurses reading hypnotic scripts in the preoperative period subsequently required lower doses of sedatives.

The researchers concluded, after analyzing more than 60 cases, that quality perioperative experience and rapid recovery supports the use of hypnosis as an effective and safe alternative to general anesthesia, in pediatric superficial surgery cases. According to the researchers, managing pain in children is critical to optimizing recovery and outcomes for children and their parents.