by Joyce-Anne Locking

What greater pleasure can be experienced than to feel the warmth of the sun in winter or the cool refreshing breeze of summer? The beauty of a bush or a flower can only be reproduced as an imitation. The original nature of the fresh flower is available to us for such a short time. Life is full of so many stimulating colours and sights. We want to see the beauty around us and absorb its lasting benefits.

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Objectives The objective of this review is to systematically review the evidence for the effectiveness of aromatherapy in the treatment of high blood pressure. Methods Twelve databases were searched from their inception through December 2009. Controlled trials testing aromatherapy in patients with hypertension of any origin that assessed blood pressure were considered. The selection of studies, data extraction and validations were performed independently by two reviewers. Results One randomized clinical trial (RCT) and four non-randomized controlled clinical trials (CCTs) met our inclusion criteria. The one RCT included tested the effects of aromatherapy as compared with placebo and showed significant reduction of systolic blood pressure and diastolic blood pressure. All of the four CCTs showed favourable effects of aromatherapy. However, all of the CCTs also had a high risk of bias. Conclusion The existing trial evidence does not show convincingly that aromatherapy is effective for hypertension. Future studies should be of high quality with a particular emphasis on designing an adequate control intervention.

J Eval Clin Pract. 2010 Jul 29. Hur MH, Lee MS, Kim C, Ernst E. Professor, School of Nursing, Eulji University, Daejeon, South Korea.

FULL TITLE: Piloting tailored teaching on nonpharmacologic enhancements for postoperative pain management in older adults.

Despite many advances in the pharmacologic treatment of pain, the issue of unresolved postoperative pain continues to plague patients and health care professionals. Little seems to be known about the reasons why nonpharmacologic methods are not more widely used, particularly as they are commonly low in cost, easy to use, and largely free of adverse side effects. A central question has to do with what patients are taught about nonpharmacologic methods and how a novel mode of teaching can be embedded in practice. A seven-step pre-posttest teaching intervention pilot study was deployed with older joint replacement patients within the context of a translational research model. Results of the teaching pilot showed significant post-teaching changes in subjects' knowledge and attitudes about nonpharmacologic methods for pain management, high satisfaction with the nonpharmacologic methods they chose, and incrementally greater use of the nonpharmacologic methods over the course of the hospital stay. A randomized controlled trial of the study is now in the early planning stages in an effort to obtain generalizable results that will help solidify evidence of the impact of music, imagery, and slow-stroke massage on pain management and confirm the value of patient teaching as an important means of offering patients more options for managing their own pain.

Pain Manag Nurs. 2010 Sep;11(3):148-58. Tracy SM. University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH, USA. s.tracy@unh.edu