Effects of Hands-on-Healing vs. Touch for Fatigue and Inflammation in Breast Cancer Survivors

Inclusion Criteria:

- Premenopausal and postmenopausal women between the ages of 18 to 70 years.

- Ability to give informed consent.

- Breast cancer survivors who have undergone surgery, including lumpectomy and simple
or total mastectomy, followed by chemotherapy or a combination of chemo- and
radio-therapy. We have elected to study survivors instead of patients actively
undergoing treatment to alleviate subject burden and risk during this protocol.

- Stage I to III breast cancer survivors.

- Breast cancer survivors who have finished their chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy at
least one month prior to 60 months prior.

- Breast cancer survivors with above-normative levels of fatigue.

Exclusion Criteria:

- Breast cancer patients who are currently receiving or who are scheduled to receive
radiation or chemotherapy during the course of this intervention study.

- Patients with current major depression, current or history of prior bipolar illness,
currently on psychotropic medications.

- Patients with other diseases that are known to induce fatigue (e.g., thyroid
disorder; sleep disorders).

- Patients with other inflammatory diseases that affect cytokine levels.

- Patients with a history of other cancers, and stage IV breast cancer.

- Patients undergoing current chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy.

- Men with breast cancer.

- Substance abuse/dependence.

- Continued use of another biofield-based intervention (e.g., Reiki, Qi-Gong, Healing
Touch, Therapeutic Touch, Johrei).