Donald R. Noll, DO
Donald R. Noll, DO, an internist and geriatrician in Stratford, New Jersey, and a member of the faculty of Rowan University School of Osteopathic Medicine’s New Jersey Institute for Successful Aging.
Pneumonia is a serious problem in the elderly. When hospitalized for it, they are there longer and also are at greater risk of dying from the illness compared with younger people. In a recent study of 306 pneumonia patients, age 50 and older, researchers found that when osteopathic manipulative treatment (OMT) was added to the antibiotic therapy pneumonia is always treated with, it resulted in one full day reduction in the length of hospital stay.
The patients were divided into three groups. Those receiving only conventional medical treatment (antibiotics) were hospitalized an average of 3.9 days… while patients who received conventional treatment plus OMT spent only 2.9 days (on average) in the hospital. A third group that received a placebo treatment of light touch and antibiotics was discharged in an average of 3.5 days. A provocative and intriguing finding was that patients aged 75 and older who received either OMT or light touch had no deaths, compared with a 9% death rate for those receiving antibiotics alone.
In the study, the OMT and light touch groups received two 15-minute treatment sessions daily, six hours apart. The OMT session consisted of standardized osteopathic treatment techniques designed to improve chest wall mobility and circulation, plus five minutes of non-standardized treatment. The light touch treatments mimicked the OMT treatments but with only “minimal movement” of tissue, lymph flow, etc.
Research has already established that when hospitalized patients are able to get out of bed and walk around, they recover faster. However, many elderly patients with pneumonia are too sick to get out of bed. Osteopathic manipulation can accomplish many of the same physiological benefits of early mobilization, explained study coauthor Donald R. Noll, DO, an osteopath at A.T. Still University in Kirksville, Missouri. “It’s a way to mobilize the immobile.”
Osteopathic physicians treat various ailments by manipulating soft tissue and joints. For this study, the researchers used techniques designed to influence the respiratory system — for example, rib raising, which helps patients take deeper breaths and therefore relieves congestion. “The techniques used in the study are gentle ones that older people can tolerate,” says Dr. Noll, describing them as “similar to massage, but more focused and based on each patient’s physical examination.”
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