Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina

Jan. 13, 2010 -- This is Dr. Kathi Kemper, the Carol Guth chair for integrative medicine at Wake Forest University School of Medicine. I'm delighted to tell you that we have many ongoing research projects dealing with complementary therapies for children and adults at Wake Forest. Among these are studies for children with cancer, such as a study by Dr. Tom McLean looking at the effectiveness of Sea-Bands, those are the little elastic bands that go around the wrist that some people use when they're going deep sea fishing or whale watching or that kind of thing out on boats, and we're looking at whether those are helpful in treating nausea in children getting chemotherapy.

Another study that's going on here is looking at the effectiveness of music in promoting healthy growth in premature babies. We're also looking at the impact of parent-provided massages on overall well-being in pediatric patients.

So a number of studies going on here: We've recently finished another study looking at the impact of healing touch, which is a very gentle touch kind of therapy for children undergoing therapy and a similar study in adults, both showing that this can help decrease anxiety and improve an overall sense of well-being and sleep.