{"id":569,"date":"2015-12-10T02:44:01","date_gmt":"2015-12-10T02:44:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.firstlighthomecare.com\/home-healthcare-salem\/?p=569"},"modified":"2026-02-02T15:02:34","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T15:02:34","slug":"the-need-for-touch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.firstlighthomecare.com\/home-healthcare-salem\/2015\/12\/10\/the-need-for-touch\/","title":{"rendered":"Our Undeniable Need For Touch"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Newborn,

Much has been written about the effect\u00a0of touch on\u00a0newborn babies. We sometimes forget it\u00a0can work wonders on adults, too.<\/p><\/div>\n

A friend recently told me about a conversation she had with a man at a local bar. He was telling her the story of caregiving for his wife. After describing almost a decade of medical appointments, health disappointments, and moments of family strife, he said to my friend, \u201cDo you know the hardest part of all those years? Not being touched.\u201d<\/p>\n

Touch and human contact isn\u2019t something most of us talk about openly. Many of us grew up in families where hugs were frowned upon, and a stranger at a bar talking about his need for touch makes us cringe at our Puritan roots. But this man wasn\u2019t trying to pick up my friend; he was trying to educate her about caregiving.<\/p>\n

He went from having a loving, intimate, physical relationship with his wife to being her home health aide, and over time, the lack of physical contact in his life affected his mental condition much more than caring for his sick spouse did. He wasn\u2019t eating well or sleeping and had a lingering feeling of loneliness and depression.<\/p>\n

Touch is a basic need, like food, water, and sleep, but it\u2019s the only need we feel embarrassed to ask for. It\u2019s the only need where asking for it makes us look weak or needy. I\u2019m not talking about sexual need\u2014that\u2019s different. The need I\u2019m talking about is the need for warmth and security and energy passed between two people\u2014the same skin-to-skin contact that studies say helps newborn babies thrive.<\/p>\n

I recently saw a clip about a woman with advanced Alzheimer\u2019s who had been in a facility, separate from her husband, for several years. She was starting to fail and her husband asked if he could get in bed with her to hold her before she died. Every day, he spent an hour or two there, just holding her. After just a few days, she started getting better physically. Her memory didn\u2019t magically come back but her physical health did.<\/p>\n

The human need for touch is why I\u2019m touchy with most of our clients and why we encourage our caregivers to be. Most people won\u2019t ask you to touch them, but it\u2019s amazing how a person\u2019s response to you can go from stiff and uncomfortable to warm and friendly with just the touch of a hand.<\/p>\n

I worked with one client recently who is very independent and doesn\u2019t like to be doted on. I assumed she didn\u2019t care for touch. But one day, she was sick in bed with a cold and I started rubbing her head. Her eyes teared up and she said, \u201cThank you\u201d in a way that I knew was thanks for more than just making her stuffed head feel better. This was probably the first touch she\u2019d had in months.<\/p>\n

Yes, there are people who don\u2019t like touch and it\u2019s important to tune into that, but you may be surprised by the people who need it. Make touch a part of your relationship with your sick and aging loved ones, and if you\u2019re caring for a loved one (or you\u2019re someone who\u2019s lost a spouse through illness or divorce), find a way to get touch in your life. Hug your friends, get a weekly massage (that\u2019s what the man in the bar ended up doing), find human contact.<\/p>\n

The majority of us needs touch in our loves. Whether you\u2019re a caregiver as the man in the bar was or you\u2019re a care recipient, finding a way to get touch into your day may be as important to your health as food and water.<\/p>\n

Molly Rowe owns FirstLight Home Care with her husband, Steve Rowe, and lives in Swampscott with their two sons. FirstLight provides non-medical in-home care to adults in Swampscott, Marblehead, Nahant, Lynn, Salem, Peabody, Danvers, Beverly, and Lynnfield. For more information and help caring for your loved ones in the comfort of their own homes, please visit FirstLight\u2019s website at <\/em>www.salem.firstlighthomecare.com<\/em><\/a> or contact Molly at <\/em>781-691-5755\/mrowe@firstlighthomecare.com<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

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A friend recently told me about a conversation she had with a man at a local bar. He was telling her the story of caregiving for his wife. After describing almost a decade of medical appointments, health disappointments, and moments of family strife, he said to my friend, \u201cDo you…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":570,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-caring-for-aging-parents"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstlighthomecare.com\/home-healthcare-salem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstlighthomecare.com\/home-healthcare-salem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstlighthomecare.com\/home-healthcare-salem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstlighthomecare.com\/home-healthcare-salem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstlighthomecare.com\/home-healthcare-salem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=569"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstlighthomecare.com\/home-healthcare-salem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstlighthomecare.com\/home-healthcare-salem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstlighthomecare.com\/home-healthcare-salem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstlighthomecare.com\/home-healthcare-salem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstlighthomecare.com\/home-healthcare-salem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}