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NBC's Peggy Pico ReportingDoctors at a hospital in San Diego seem to have a new way to treat their patients and it's sending them home sooner than expected.
Listening to a soothing CD, 79-year old Edith Taylor prepares for another surgery.
Edith Taylor, Heart Patient:"I've had five or six stents in the past eight years or so."
Before and after each operation, Edith gets a 10 minute healing touch therapy.
Mimi Guarneri, M.D., Scripps Integrative Medicine: "There are no pills, no chemicals, you don't even have to believe in it."
Cardiologist Mimi Guarneri of Scripps Integrative Medicine explains how it works.
Mimi Guarneri, MD, Scripps Integrative Medicine: "It's based on a concept that this is our physical body-- but extending out from our physical body is what's called our energy body and the energy body can be manipulated through techniques."
Elizabeth Fraser, R.N., Touch therapist: "It's a very light touch, and then we do things like balancing our Chakra's, opening them for the patient, clearing their electric magnetic field."
It's not a massage, sometimes hands hover above the body.
Edith Taylor, Heart Patient: "No it really doesn't feel like anything."
Still, according to a decade of research, this kind of touch therapy cuts pain and recovery time in half.
Mimi Guarneri, MD, Scripps Integrative Medicine: "There's been a number of research studies that show healing touch can promote reduction in pain, relieve anxiety, accelerate wound healing."
Edith Taylor, Heart Patient: "I don't think there's anybody who is having surgery that doesn't get a little bit nervous or shook up prior to it."
Elizabeth Fraser, RN, Touch Therapist: "That's helping to clear their energy field and it's just relaxing and helps ease anxiety."
Edith Taylor, Heart Patient: "Yes, I do feel more relaxed."
Hospitals nationwide provide Healing Touch Therapy and some actually prescribe it.
