Our "Caring and Cancer Project," sponsored by the National Cancer Institute, produced and evaluated the new DVD program Touch, Caring and Cancer: Simple Instruction for Family and Friends.

The mission was to create a program that enables family members to become part of the treatment team, joining with the efforts of the patient's other care providers by providing support at home as part of an integrative approach to care. The program is suitable for distribution to families by:

• Cancer support and advocacy organizations
• Cancer treatment centers
• Hospital cancer programs
• Hospice programs
• Palliative care programs
• Outpatient cancer services
• Organizations wishing to support families with cancer

The DVD is 78 minutes long and is accompanied by a 66 page illustrated manual. Our study with 97 caregiver/patient dyads found that family caregivers were able to safely reduce symptoms in cancer patients by 28-44% when using the techniques taught in the program (Journal of the Society for Integrative Oncology, Fall 2009 issue); to see an abstract, click here.

The program features two of the nation's leading experts in massage for cancer, Tracy Walton, MS, NCTMB, and Janet Kahn, PhD, NCTMB. Other contributors are William Collinge, PhD, the project director; David Rosenthal, MD, of the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center, and former president of the American Cancer Society; and Susan Bauer-Wu, PhD, RN, Distinguished Cancer Scholar at Emory University. The program also features eleven caregivers and patients who were filmed learning and practicing the techniques. We are delighted that the program has won two Telly Awards for excellence in independent film making, in the categories of "Social Issues," and "Health and Wellness."

The program is available in English, Spanish and Chinese language versions. You can see trailers of the DVD in all languages on the Partners in Healing website.

Organizations who wish to provide the program to their patient families can contact William Collinge directly.