Assignment on Experimentation Exposure Proposal

Running head: EXPERIMENTATION EXPOSURE PROPOSAL
EXPERIMENTATION EXPOSURE PROPOSAL
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author note:

EXPERIMENTATION EXPOSURE PROPOSAL1
Introduction
Patients with chronic or terminal illnesses, such as cancer, often demonstrate a preference
to engage in complimentary or alternative therapies, that is, those treatments which are used in
conjunction with conventional therapeutic interventions for the purpose of improvement of
quality of life and long term alleviation from debilitating symptoms like pain (Kao et al., 2017).
One such complimentary intervention is aromatherapy massage, a Swedish variation of
massage comprising of the use of extensively concentrated plant-based essential oils (Hsu et al.,
2019). The following paper will briefly shed light on the key exposure interventions to follow
with respect to a proposed study evaluating the effectiveness of aromatherapy massage in the
improvement of quality of life and pain relief symptoms across cancer patients receiving
palliative care.
Discussion
Current Evidence
Prior to arriving at safe and optimum quality patient interventions, there is a need to first
briefly evaluated current research exploring the effectiveness of aromatherapy massage as a
complimentary, pain relieving cancer intervention. A short literature review was conducted by
procuring relevant academic and scholarly evidence based studies using an online search
strategy. Systematic reviews and randomized controlled trials conducting comparative studies
between aromatherapy massage and conventional treatments were included (Hart, 2018). The
have been discussed briefly as mentioned below.
The systematic review by Shin et al., (2016) aimed to explore the effectiveness of
aromatherapy massage for the purpose of inducing pain relief across cancer patients. Of the total

EXPERIMENTATION EXPOSURE PROPOSAL2
of 19 randomized controlled trials reviewed, none of the studies provided valid or applicable
findings considering the clinical effectiveness of aromatherapy massage, majorly due to poor
methodological quality, reliability and relatively small sample sizes. Likewise, of the 10
randomized controlled trials evaluated in the meta-analysis by Chen et al., (2016), none of the
patients receiving aromatherapy massage demonstrated significant improvements in pain relief in
comparison to the control groups receiving conventional treatments.
In the randomized controlled trial by Izgu, Ozdemir and Basal (2019) patients suffering
from neuropathic pain induced by chemotherapy, reported significantly lower rates of pain after
the 2nd, 4th, 6th and 8th week of receiving aromatherapy, thrice a week, as compared to routine care
patients (p < 0.05). Also, the randomized controlled trial by Clemo-Cosby et al., (2018), breast
cancer patients receiving aromatherapy massage demonstrated alleviation of fatigue, anxiety,
depression and improvement in emotional wellbeing at 6 weeks as compared to routine care
groups, with however no significant changes in terms of reduction in swelling, pain, coping
ability or quality of life. Such conflicting results demonstrate that while short term aromatherapy
massage may induce improvements in pain relief, its impact on quality of life improvement
continues to be controversial and requires further research.
Proposed Exposure for Experimentation
Thus, to ensure safety in chronically ill cancer patients, the proposed experimentation
exposure interventions will be based upon the valid and recent randomized controlled trials
conducted by Izgu, Ozdemir and Basal (2019) and Clemo-Cosby et al., (2018). Firstly, to ensure
ethical compliance, ethical approval concerning the study and informed consent from
participants and the administration of the healthcare organization providing palliative care will
be obtained. Patients who are severely bed-ridden or ill or demonstrating unsoundness in terms