When touch is not the best approach

Abstract

Health care professionals have long believed in the value of nonverbal components of communication and the highly significant roles such factors as distance, space, and touch can play in therapeutic relationships. The value of touch is not appreciated by all health care professionals or considered appropriate or desirable by some patients. While touch has been described as the most important of all the senses, the astute professional must be cognizant of the times when touch should not be used.